Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Searching for the right word
A Mexican friend IM'd me today, asking for what word I'd use in English, for when you're asked to do a task, and you will do it, but not right now.
I thought about it and the best thing I could come up with was 'Mañana'.
Which reminded me of this joke:
Spanish singer Julio Iglesias was on television with British TV host Anne Diamond when he used the word 'manyana'. Diamond asked him to explain what it meant.
He said that the term means "maybe the job will be done tomorrow, maybe the next day, maybe the day after that. Perhaps next week, next month, next year. Who cares?"
The host turned to Irishman Shay Brennan who was also on the show and asked him if there was an equivalent term in Irish.
"No. In Ireland we don't have a word to describe that degree of urgency," replied Brennan.
I'm sure this is apocryphal, since it's a takeoff on what Pete McCarthy said in his book McCarthy's Bar "The Spanish concept of mañana is said to be too urgent-sounding to be translated into Irish."
