I have been using the word “claro” quite a bit lately for a lot of different things, and it seems to me that again, we have a word that should be discussed. I’m not so sure that it is indicative of culture, but is certainly indicative of the imprecision that is language and especially translation.
Simply using Google Translator illustrates this. When entering the Spanish word “claro” the definitions come up as follows: clear, bright, transparent, distinct, apparent, thin, weak, and others, none of which I have ever seen in a Spanish I dictionary. I was taught that claro meant of course, right, sure, or yes (in a loose sense).
Sure, right and yes don’t appear anywhere on there and I have heard this word used in this context too many times to count.
When putting “of course” in the translator we get por supuesto, which is the best denotation of of course, but claro or claro que si should be on there as well.
“Right” does not get a claro definition.
“Sure” does get a claro definition but only as an interjection.
How can we make our communication more precise and avoid misunderstanding? Should we expand vocabulary or contract it? Order it or disorder it?
From Roosevelt’s New Deal to “Deal or No Deal” on NBC to “What’s the deal”, “What’s the dealio”, ” Here’s the deal”, “Let’s Make a Deal”, “Deal with it”, “Cut a Deal”, “Deal breaker”, “Deal maker”, “Raw Deal”, “Big Deal”, “Dealer”, or simply “Deal!”, this word in English is both ubiquitous and full of meaning, where in Spanish and Latin America there are perhaps hundreds of translations none of which are quite akin to the meanings of these phrases in English and all of which are emblematic of cultural differences.
Where to begin… The word deal comes from some Old English and Balto-Slavic roots and most often is used to mean a business transaction, to handle, to cope, to occupy oneself/itself, to distribute, take action, buy/sell drugs and the list goes on and on.
The interesting thing is that if you pick any of these phrases in English that use the word deal, a completely different set of words in Spanish will arise: trato, acuerdo, pacto, negocio, transaccion, convenio, reparto, parte, mano, comprar y vender, etc., which most literally translated back into English go something like agreement, pact, negotiation/business, transaction, covenant, deal (cards), part/allotment/segment, hand (as in cards), buy/sell. You can see that none of these signifiers encompass the meanings of the word deal in its entirety.
I myself rarely go through a day without using the phrase what’s the deal with (fill in the blank). Variations of course are what’s his/her deal, what’s your deal, etc. What’s interesting to me, is that in America we are always making a deal. This word commonly refers to a business transaction or agreement yet we use it all the time to simply assess states of being and plans for a day or evening. We Americans clearly have rooted into our cultural identity the word deal and its implications.
Another great example of how culture is embedded in language is the phrase “Felices Fiestas”/Happy Holidays.
The word feliz means happy but the word fiesta means party! Happy parties??
Well yes!! Of couse! This is Latin America. And Latin America wouldn’t have nearly as much allure if it weren’t for the parties. And in true Latin fashion, Christmas is celebrated at night (still with family), on the 24th, and everyone goes out and dances and parties after dinner with friends and family.
Quite a bit of contrast to our happy holy-days. (The word “holiday” comes from holy + day). (another reference).
And oh my God the fireworks! For those of you in Buenos Aires during Christmas this year please go onto the highest rooftop you can find at about midnight to watch a citywide display of fireworks. Not the 4th of July super watered down so the kids don’t get burned kind. I mean massive explosions that if you didn’t know any better would lead you to believe you were in the middle of a war zone. And it’s a 360 degree display.
And dancing and music and so forth. Yes, it’s a party and hence the difference in the wording and the meaning.
Christmas in the U.S. as we know consists of a frenzy of purchasing leading up to the 25th and on that particular day, the most normal activities are for kids to open presents, to have dinner with family and friends, and watch football and/or basketball.
No dancing, no fireworks, no parties. I’m not saying that the Latin version is better it’s just different. I miss basketball on Christmas. I also miss good beer.
And I’m just trying to illustrate why one culture calls theirs a happy holiday and the other happy parties.
So someone was on here defending how the bus drivers have to stay on a “schedule”, which I find highly unlikely, and that one of the reasons why a bus driver might pass you by–at the bus stop, if you are there waiting for a bus–is because he has overtaken the bus in front of him and has to assume that buses schedule.
Nonsense.
Today I counted 5 (yes FIVE!!) number 15 buses that passed by the bus stop that I was waiting at on Luis Maria Campos. There was a line of about 10 people already and it’s not as if all 5 passed us in a line (which does happen).
Two passed, both made eye contact with the line waiting, one driver shrugged and the other raised one hand, palm to the sky, as if to say “sorry.”
Then a third, who also made eye contact and shrugged.
Then a fourth and fifth in line who both made eye contact with the line as well.
At that point I asked the person at the front of the line how long they had been waiting for the bus (specifically so I could come write this blog): 25 minutes. This is at 2:30 in the afternoon on a weekday.
I don’t know if a 6th bus stopped or not because I took a taxi.
Ok, so you’ll have to forgive me, but I’m gonna bitch and moan a little bit: why is it that no one publishes their prices when listing real estate in Buenos Aires? Literally 80% of all listings come with an ad like “gorgeous view, ideal location, lots of light, 50 square meters”.
And then no price.
Am I supposed to call each one? If the owner went to the trouble of writing all the stuff down and taking out the ad why didn’t he write down the price? It makes zero sense.
They lose time and I waste time. Because the first of all, I’m not gonna call the ads that don’t have prices listed. But if I exhaust all of my possibilities and do start calling them the first thing I’m gonna ask is the price. HELLO!!! What are they thinking? Could they really be that dumb to think that they are gonna be able to “figure out” who the caller is, pull the wool over their eyes and rip them off.
Am I being crazy because I don’t see any other way to see it.
My friend Michael came to visit me in Buenos Aires in 2006. He had a grant proposal that he had to write so we decided to stay in instead of going out. When I said “let’s get ice cream” he said, “I don’t want to go anywhere.” Oh no, my dear friend, you don’t have to go anywhere in Argentina to get THE BEST ice cream in the world, you just have to pick up the phone, and they bring it to you.
I have no less than 7 menus from ice creameries around my neighborhood who, within 30 minutes, will bring me 1/2 kilos or full kilos or multiple 1/4 kilos (1/4 is about a pint) of luscious, creamy, dreamy ice cream.
I have wondered for a long time about why there is no delivery ice cream in the U.S. being that we have delivery pizza, Chinese, Thai and other things. I suppose it’s a question of logistics. Buenos Aires, Mendoza, Córdoba, Tucumán, Bariloche, Salta, and basically all of the remotely big cities in Argentina have delivery ice cream (and pizza, parrilla, asado, “rotisería”, etc.), and they are all much more densely populated than most American cities. New York obviously being the exception.
But also I think it has to do with the fact that they use tiny mopeds to do deliveries. Persicco (the ice cream shop), has an armada of small mopeds decked out in Persicco branding parked in front of their shops. Intercontinental Pizza has this too along with many other businesses.
Oops! The doorbell rang. Gotta get my ice cream. 
This may sound strange, but as soon as I got off the plane today when I arrived at the Ezeiza airport in Buenos Aires I noticed the smells. Plural.
Faint odors of cigarette smoke abound. Bakeries have a righteously pungent aroma. The air is damp but not tropical. The tell tale waft of asado pierces my nose and my salivary glands squeeze.
In Portland, the cleanliness of pine trees dominates the odor palate. It’s wonderful. It’s all Portland. But it’s so clean and sort of non committal. So white washed and devoid of danger and romance. Not that Portland can’t be romantic, it’s just that it’s more of a sleepy small city in the Pacific Northwest.
Buenos Aires is anything but sleepy. It wreaks of party noises, screaming and shouting, dog barking, music and traffic till the wee hours. Yeah, there’s dog shit on the streets. Yes it takes an hour to get your check.
Is one better than the other? I say no. It’s just a collection of differences. A summation of dissimilarities.
www.anuvawines.com
http://austin10.cityspur.com/2009/10/28/global-cost-of-living-ranking-1-april-2009/
That link there shows you the top 300 or so cities in the world in descending order from most expensive. Buenos Aires comes in at number 252 on the list meaning that it is incredibly cheap to live here. Cities in the U.S. are listed on there as well for comparison purposed.
The irony, however, is that although rent, transportation and food are quite inexpensive when compared to the rest of the world, clothing, electronics, “exotic foods” (like sushi) and actually wine as well are all as expensive or more so than the United States.
Compare ipods, iphones, TVs, bluejeans, Levi’s, Banana Republic, Old Navy, etc. All of this stuff is on the order of twice as much money in the U.S. as in Argentina. Even Starbucks costs more in Argentina than in the U.S. That last one is actually boggles the mind because in the first list, the reason for the price difference comes down to shipping and taxes, but for Starbuck’s, well, they’re just greedy.
Look at Alamos wines (from Catena) or Norton, Trapiche, Las Perdices, Mairena, or Mevi: all of these wines are comparitively 3 times as expensive in Argentina as in the U.S.Why is this? Well, in the case of electronics and clothing it is due to extremely high import duties as well as increased shipping costs. Don’t be fooled though, it is the import duties that account for 99% of the difference where shipping only accounts for maybe 1%.
So why is domestically produced wine (the only wine in Argentina) so much more expensive in Argentina than in the U.S. Keep in mind that I am comparing the same brands. There are many brands that exist in Argentina that you can get for less than a dollar. But none of those are sold in the U.S.
The reasons, according to my friends in wine circles, that wine in Argentina costs the same if not more in Argentina than in the U.S. comes down to three things: greed, import duties, and value added tax. Again, don’t be fooled, it is greed that accounts for 90% of this equation. But not just on the part of the wineries and distributors: greed of the government. A 21% V.A.T. is added to all goods. And in Argentina it’s added 3 times: once when the winery sells to a distributor, once when the distributor sells to the retailer, and once when the retailer sells to the public. This accounts for a 77% increase in the price of the wine due to taxes.
But that’s not all. Why is it that you cannot find any imported wine in Argentina? Literally I can count on my hand the number of restaurants and wine shops that offer something from outside Argentina. And I’m including Chile, which is their next door neighbor. A huge import duty (50% at times) exist on all imported wine as a protectionist measure. Could you imagine what wine would cost in Argentina if this duty was reduced to say 5%? The market would become much more competitive and local producers would have to reduce prices to compete. Right now that huge import duty allows them to inflate prices without consequences.
A week after arriving in Buenos Aires in 2004, I had a hankering for some peanuts. Having been educated in Spanish for 6 years, and trusting every word my teachers said in addition to my extensive experience in Mexico, I assumed I knew basically all of the vocabulary that a foreigner should know.
So when I walked into a supermarket and asked to find the “cacahuates” (Mexican and Central American for “peanut”) I got some really strange expressions. “Que carajo es un cacahuate?” I got at the second kiosk I went to. Finally I arrived at a bigger supermarket and the owner was smart enough to ask one of his employees, an immigrant from Bolivia, what I was talking about. “Ooohhh, vos queres mani!” (Please note that the keyboard I am typing on has no accent function and there should be an accent over the “i” in mani, making the pronunciation mah-NEE). Joy, I had my peanuts finally although no peanut butter.
Other vocabulary changes: palta = aguacate = avocado; remera = camiseta = T-shrit; camiseta = uniforme = jersey/uniform; colectivo = autobus = bus; manteca = mantequilla = butter.
On pretty much any table in any restaurant in the U.S. you will find a bottle of ketchup.
With pretty much any order of fries, hotdogs, chicken, or milanesa (breaded fried chicken or steak) in Argentina you will find a serving of mayonnaise.
Why the difference?
One clear and distinct answer lies in the history and invention of these two sauces. The invention of modern ketchup is credited by some to H.J. Heinz, the founder of The Heinz company. His adaptation of the Chinese “cat-sup” (still seen written this way on some company’s bottles) made its way to market in the late 1800s, originating in Pennsylvania, which explains why it penetrated the market so much in the U.S. It didn’t arrive to Europe or South America until much later.
Mayonnaise on the other hand, was invented much earlier, and indeed by the French Duke de Richelieu in, uh, France around 1756. This gap of 150 years or so with mayo and without ketchup in Europe is probably the reason for the majority of why American’s prefer and use ketchup over mayo and vice versa in Argentina, South America and Europe.
Now the hard data was really hard to come by, but I think that there is another reason for the respective preferences for ketchup vs. mayo in different regions: the palate.
Ketchup is basically sugar. With 2 of the first 3 ingredients in ketchup being high fructose corn syrup and sugar, Ketchup fits America’s need for sweet products, sweet/savory combinations. Ketchup has no fat in it and is basically entirely sugar. This produces a drastically different hormonal effect in the body when consumed (sugar high, followed by huge insulin spike, followed by lethargy).
Mayo is essentially entirely fat with the main components being egg yolk and different oils (depending on the recipe). Strangely, mayo takes on different colors in America vs. Argentina. In the U.S. mayo is starkly white. This strikes me as odd for a food that is based on the yellow egg yolk because in Argentina, it is much more yellow.
The 100% fat content of mayo satiates the appetite and gives people a full feeling. This hormonal effect of satiation is much different than the roller coaster sugar high effect of ketchup.
Not to mention that the flavor of mayo is not sweet at all. It is entirely savory, another thing that illustrates the two countries’ preferences for sugar vs. fat, sugar high vs fat satiation, ketchup vs mayonnaise.
The odd thing about the practice of serving the two condiments is that ketchup in the U.S. is omnipresent. It’s on every table in every restaurant. ANYTIME fries are served, ketchup is there, even in high end establishments. Mayo would be odd in that circumstance. I invoke here, the movie Pulp Fiction where the John Travolta character, at the beginning of the movie has just returned from Europe and tells the Samuel L. Jackson character about how they “drown [their fries] in that shit (mayo)”, and they both remark about how strange they find that custom.
In Argentina, fries are served without anything and I have always had to ask for ketchup, and since I view fries basically as a ketchup transportation system, I have been frustrated when restaurants do not have ketchup. What a nightmare.
