The View from a Drawbridge

Tag: Spanish

  • Have we Overstayed our Welcome?

    Aw, jeez, I need to stop surfing the internet. I just came across a website called Recent Natural Disasters, and it gives you all the reported disasters all over the world, 24 hours a day. I have a hard enough time avoiding my tendency to anthropomorphize nature, especially when it seems as though the planet…

  • Lagniappe

    For those of you who have never been to New Orleans, allow me to introduce you to the world’s most delightful custom: Lagniappe. This word came to the English language via the Louisiana French by way of the Spanish Creoles from the Quechua word yapay. Whew! The fact that it managed to survive so many…

  • Truth in Advertising?

    For every truly bad advertising campaign, I suspect there were people in the background who TRIED to warn their boss, but he or she refused to listen. Most people know about the classic one: Chevy Nova couldn’t figure out why their sales in Latin America were feeble. In Spanish, “No va” means “doesn’t go.” But…

  • Fantasy Island

    I just got through reading an article on the NPR website entitled, “Pacific Island, Bigger Than Manhattan, Vanishes.” I assumed it was going to be about global warming, and that maybe it had sunk below the rising sea level, but no. Based upon studies of the sea floor, this island never existed in the first…

  • Express Yourself While You Can

    The written and spoken word has always been dear to me. That’s why I got a bachelor’s degree in Spanish and Latin American Studies. I wanted to be able to express myself in more than one language and really get into another culture. I wanted to see how communication differed in another tongue. After living…