tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27941559.post8076861957093263639..comments2024-03-13T18:03:14.612+01:00Comments on South Of Watford: Water Not Holy Enough For Swine FluGraemehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05948656158638818739noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27941559.post-3471423578578073812009-08-30T09:30:08.760+02:002009-08-30T09:30:08.760+02:00Maybe they should switch to holy bleach instead of...Maybe they should switch to holy bleach instead of holy water, at least until science gets a grip on the gripe.leftbankerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13990365189051313153noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27941559.post-42135354265069448912009-08-20T13:45:42.155+02:002009-08-20T13:45:42.155+02:00Oh, it would suit me fine too, but the point I'...Oh, it would suit me fine too, but the point I'm making is that it seems to me that <i>normal English usage</i> is Zaragoza, and has been for some time. So in the LRB piece, I think it should have been rendered as such and that failure to do this (or indicate why not) suggests Bell wasn't familiar with contemporary usage - and perhaps that he's more familiar with French than Spanish.<br /><br />But it also interests me because it seems quite possible that normal practice has changed, and as I say, that leads me to wonder why and when that should have happened.ejhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01582272075999298935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27941559.post-58646613257616453892009-08-20T11:47:53.588+02:002009-08-20T11:47:53.588+02:00As far as I know, Saragossa is the older name for ...As far as I know, Saragossa is the older name for the city. There are two reasons to suspect that this is true: 1 - it's in Aragon, where the lingua franca would have been Aragonese & Catalan a few hundred years ago, and 2 - its Arabic name was 'Saraqusta'.<br /><br />Saragossa is certainly the correct name in Catalan and French, and most probably in English too (like Seville for Sevilla). I think it sounds much nicer as I've never really liked the 'th' sound for 'z's in Castilian Spanish.Tomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06562902749398922096noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27941559.post-22659166976411963692009-08-20T09:47:10.183+02:002009-08-20T09:47:10.183+02:00The guy on La Sexta - I assume you know he's a...The guy on La Sexta - I assume you know he's actually a basketball commentator - usually causes me to switch over the TV3 and watch the same match in a langauge of which I know nothing.<br /><br />I actually assume that the TVE commentator somehow thought the word Celtic was related to Catholic, a mistake easy to make if you know a litle (ref: Alexander Pope) about Celtic's history and traditions. But it's still quite wrong for more than one reason.<br /><br />Talking of Zaragoza, I sent an unanswered message to the author of <a href="http://www.lrb.co.uk/v30/n21/bell02_.html" rel="nofollow">this piece</a> (mostly subscribers-only, sorry) about his use of the term Saragossa, partly because in the body of the piece he chides Fraser for lack of attention to French sources and writes:<br /><br /><i>the references throughout to 'Josef' Bonaparte suggest what might be a lack of comfort with the French language</i><br /><br />which I thought ironic given that his own use of the French word for Zaragoza suggested to me that the same is true of him, regarding Spanish.<br /><br />I do know, by the way, that the French word was used in English until relatively recently (Thomas uses it, for instance) and it would be interesting to know when and why that changed, but certainly by the time Motty was complaining - and I think his gripe was at the requirement to say Th rather than Z, not Th rather than S - it had happened long since.<br /><br />Personally, I can't get anybody to understand me when I say "Reus", which is bothersome.ejhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01582272075999298935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27941559.post-48004615956480207712009-08-20T08:03:31.289+02:002009-08-20T08:03:31.289+02:00Probably for similar reasons to the guy on La Sext...Probably for similar reasons to the guy on La Sexta who shouts "Humphrey Bogart" every time Xavi touches the ball. Still it's better than John Motson who once famously referred to the team "that I suppose we have to start calling Real Tharagotha" as if pronouncing a foreign name almost correctly was an insult to the profession.Graemehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05948656158638818739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27941559.post-28329148592228094872009-08-19T14:14:59.922+02:002009-08-19T14:14:59.922+02:00Talking of the pretemporada can somebody explain t...Talking of the pretemporada can somebody explain to me why the TVE commentator last night saw fit to refer to Arsenal's opponents, more than once, as "los católicos de Glasgow"?ejhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01582272075999298935noreply@blogger.com