false cognates

Molest / Molestar

| Daphna Kedar Kelman (Dafna)
Molest vs Molestar

The Spanish word “molestar” means “annoy, bother disturb”, whilst the English term “molest” conveys negative sexual connotations of “sexual harassment“.
According to the “The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission“:
“Sexual harassment is a form of sex discrimination that violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature constitute sexual harassment when submission to or rejection of this conduct explicitly or implicitly affects an individual’s employment, unreasonably interferes with an individual’s work performance or creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment.
Sexual harassment can occur in a variety of circumstances, including but not limited to the following:
The victim, as well as the harasser, maybe a woman or a man. The victim does not have to be of the opposite sex.
The harasser can be the victim’s supervisor, an agent of the employer, a supervisor in another area, a co-worker, or a non-employee.
The victim does not have to be the person harassed but could be anyone affected by the offensive conduct.
Unlawful sexual harassment may occur without economic injury to or discharge of the victim.
The harasser’s conduct must be unwelcome.”
At the present time, when all of us aspire to be politically correct, there is a need for being extremely careful when applying these verbal nuances… imagine then the reaction of a native speaker that was asked by his Argentinian colleague that wishes to brush up her English: KINDLY DO NOT MOLEST ME NOW…

Sanctuary / Santuario

| Daphna Kedar Kelman (Dafna)

The term “false-cognate” is sometimes misused for “false friend.” False cognates are a pair of words in the same or different languages that are similar in form and meaning but have different roots. That is, they appear to be or are sometimes considered cognates when in fact they are not.
The mistranslation of a false cognate may not only lead to academic and linguistic mistakes, but even to real life conflicts.
One of these cases is the television coverage made by the Spanish television during the Vietnam War, in which the Spanish reporter informed that the American forces were “bombing the SANCTUARIES of the Vietnamese guerrilla.” This item provoked a vast [and unfounded] media’s spin…

Here is the story: after the American media informed on TV that the US forces had “detected and attacked the sanctuaries of the Vietnamese fighters (i.e., their hiding and refuge places), the reporter decided to translate the term to the Spanish word “santuario”, which means “sacred or holy places”…
According to the”NTC’s Dictionary of Spanish False Cognates” by Marcial Prado:
“Santuario” and “sanctuary” share the meaning of “shrine, temple”. “Sanctuary also means “refugio”, “asilo” (for persons)
“Buscar asilo en, acogerse a = to seek sanctuary in”

This is yet another example of the DEVASTATING EFFECT of MISTRANSLATION and MISINTERPRETATION of WORDS…

Crudo/Crude

Translation
| Daphna Kedar Kelman (Dafna)
La Catedral del Mar / The Cathedral of the Sea is a CRUDE depiction of Medieval live in Catalonia.

“La Catedral del Mar“, is a historical novel written by Ildefonso Falcones that has been adapted for Netflix’s series: The 
Cathedral of the Sea. 
The first chapter is truly shocking, with a really CRUDE description of a maiden bride that is rapped by the “master” of the feudal farms on her wedding day, which was a privilege given to medieval rulers. On the following chapter, a baby is left to die while his mother is [yet once again] rapped by the castle soldiers. In the fourth chapter, a moor female slave is whipped to death in front of the boy she raised…

I would say those are very CRUDE scenes, which take me to the theme of the present post, the English term “Crude” versus the Spanish term “Crudo”

The English term “crude” is translated by the free dictionary as:

1. Being in an unrefined or natural state; raw.
2. Lacking tact or taste; blunt or offensive: a crude, manner-less oaf; a crude remark.
3. Characterized by uncultured simplicity; lacking in sophistication or subtlety: had only a crude notion of how a computer works.
4. Not carefully or skillfully made; rough: a quick, crude sketch.
5. Undisguised or unadorned; plain: must face the crude truth.
6. Statistics In an unanalyzed form; not adjusted to allow for related circumstances or data.
7. Archaic Unripe or immature.


The Spanish term “crudo” is used only on the first definition (1), i.e., a RAW substance in its natural state (specially for raw-meat, i.e. “carne cruda”). I believe, a Spanish commentary of the book would describe those scenes as “duras” but, in no way as “crudas”.

The professional part of this post is already written, but the question remaining is whether shall I go on reading the book and what are the “crude” scenes ahead 😉

Sarcophagus

Translations
| Daphna Kedar Kelman (Dafna)

Sometimes, new fields and specializations take existent terms that are related to a completely different field and assign them a new meaning; this was the iconic case on the Internet with the “icons” (medieval art term) and with the  2011 horrible catastrophe of the tsunami in Japan with the term “Sarcophagus”.

The Sarcophagus in ancient ages defined the place where (usually, royalty) was buried, but on the latest news, you will find it relating to the burying-place of nuclear waste. Sorts out that nuclear waste, after being used for generating energy, has to be buried, and the place where the radioactive residuals are placed is called “Sarcophagus”.

During the terrible tragedy of the tsunami in Fukushima, the sarcophagus of the nuclear plant was damaged (as well as in Chernobyl) and will need to be reconstructed in order to make sure there are no leaks. I must say that the similarities with the precious ancient object that was specially designed for royalty and the horrible huge cement monsters that bury inside all the fears of the modern world have only one factor in common: the CURSE that will fall on the heads of all those attempting to break them apart…