Friday, January 9, 2015

Cuban exiles in Florida say that Fidel Castro has died. Again.

Cuban exiles in Miami say they detect tension among close Castro family members and military circles.

Actually, EFE.com said exactly:

El exilio cubano en Miami ha detectado "tensión" entre familiares próximos a Fidel Castro y "círculos militares" en Cuba por los numerosos rumores que se han desatado en las últimas horas sobre la muerte del expresidente cubano.

Let's translate ourselves. It's fun. 

The exile Cuban in Miami has detected "tension" among family close to Fidel Castro and "circles military" in Cuba by the numerous rumors that have been untied in the last hours over the death of the ex-president Cuban.

Spanish goes like this in my mind:


But you get the idea. We should say "unhinged," "untethered," "unleashed" or "flying around" instead of "untied." 

But not again! Fidel Castro died again? Oh, no. 

There's more. 

Fuentes del exilio consultadas por EFE aseguraron hoy que la información que llega desde La Habana revela "tensión" entre los estamentos militares, así como en personas "vinculadas" a Fidel Castro por "nexos sanguíneos".

There are so many cognitives it is not even funny, and it is very repeaty, the second paragraph to the first. Like hieroglyphics, redundancy for clarity and for aesthetics, I suppose. You must take it in chunks, then flip it around. It reminds me of doing so many backflips off a diving board that dives straight in then seems unnatural.

Back to the second paragraph. 

Sources of exile consulted by EFE (an international news agency created by Spain's former minister of press and propaganda with 40 U.S. employees represented by News Media Guild, so you know this comes from Spain.) they assured that the information that came from Havana reveals "tension" among the establishment military, as well as people "linked" to Fidel Castro by "ties blood" 

This is where a touch of interpretation skill come in. It's why you wait to the end of the sentence. There are better ways of saying such things in the target language than straight word for word translation. It is why there is a pause when speeches are vocalized, why it appears that interpreters are behind. If they are not behind, if they are ahead as they are sometimes in sign, then you know they are working from script. And that is disconcerting because it challenges how you would do the interpreting. 

Again, in natural English: 

Exile sources consulted by EFE said Wednesday that the information coming from Havana reveals tension among the military establishment, as well as people related to Fidel Castro by blood ties. 

Rumors of Fidel Castro's death are like the Chevy Chase's old SNL Weekend Update catchphrase.

And in other news, Generalissimo Fidel Castro is still dead!  



7 comments:

Dad Bones said...

At least Che is still dead.

Chip Ahoy said...

I had this posted at the wrong place. Duh. *kicks my own butt*

I was distracted by a sequence of outside events.

Joe called and said Obama's airplane completely disrupted his airplane, that went from 13 in in line to 3rd in line for takeoff then had to go back and refuel, ultimately goofing up his schedule entirely, by causing him to miss appointments.

I multiplied that by hundreds of others and my emotional wrath grew concerning presidential privilege and disregard for others. I despise this empty individual in innumerable small ways and by extension his despicable party.

This reconfirms my opinion to give up on flying altogether except where absolutely necessary. The whole thing has gone negative. I used to adore jets and the experience. I used to love climbing around military jets and going inside hangars, and especially enjoy flying around. It used to be thrilling. But not anymore.

I have FOX on in the background. They're stuttering like mthrfkrs. Some utterances are nothing but interruptive stuttering. I could smack them.

In happier news, my little garden is coming along nicely. Plants that should take a month to germinate have already popped up in just 2 weeks.

In fact, everything has popped up. So far, 100% success with germination. Now If I can only keep them all alive until Spring.

I learned many things. Like chile plants do not like to start in peat moss. Maybe it is the acidity. But all mine have germinated. Maybe they would have been faster.

I owe it all to an electric blanket that turns off every 8 hours. The trays are on top of the blanket and not on all the time.

That's 288 little cups of plants. I imagine I'll end up giving away a lot of little plants as things progress. I don' t know.

Some seeds were purchased through eBay.

One package of blue double petal petunias had only three seeds with as much mass in powder that could have been smashed seeds.

I planted them. Now there are three blue double petal petunia baby plants. I have all this labeled.

I left so-so feedback stating that. The vendor became cross with my feedback and said I am unfair. They said, we always send 25 seeds plus extra so 29 or so seeds. I said, I know what they look like, I know what I received, I know what I planted, I know what came up. I bought 2 more packages to compensate for the shortage. I did not complain. I was honest. My feedback is fair. I knew the person who would send me three seeds would also complain about feedback. All other feedback was routinely excellent in a most banal way.

Nanner nanner nanner. :-p

The emoticon is me childishly sticking out my tongue.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Fideo.

Fideo is the Spanish word for noodle. It's my favorite.

ricpic said...

At least Che is dead.

Francisco Franco too.


Lem - My favorite word in Spanish is zapata: shoe. There's something about the sound of zapata that says shoe much better than shoe.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I should have said noodle soup is my favorite...

Shoe in Spanish is male btw... ergo 'zapato'.

ricpic said...

Okay, zapato, male. Does that mean high heels are zapatas?

Chip Ahoy said...

A woman at work (gorgeous Latina) told me her parents didn't teach her any Spanish at all. Shame because she knows nothing.

I said, "you looked at your own shoes and said, 'thank you' when when I said, 'zapatos muy bonitos.'"

I like acknowledging women's shoes. They pay attention to shoes, so I should pay attention to their paying attention.

She goes, "I did. Didn't I?" She smiled broadly, well pleased. " Well I guess I understand some when spoken but cannot speak it."

You can make friends with this word. I said to a man I did not know on the elevator, "sus zapatos son brillante." Broke elevator rules about not speaking to strangers. I appreciate well kept shoes. It says something. They guy opened up right there on the spot. He told me all about his job. He appreciated having his shiny shoes noticed, because he took the effort to shine them. It works for men as well as women. They pay attention to shoes. It means something. Something important.

The shoe company Zappos is a variation of the word. (Wikipedia says so, and that's the ultimate proof.)

I like the word too.