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Spanish to English translations [PRO] Art/Literary - Education / Pedagogy
Spanish term or phrase:le saliera rara
Context:
Para los niños de la guerra, antes de pensar en resolver su porvenir, existían dos tutorías fundamentales: la del propio ambiente familiar y la del lugar donde cursaran sus estudios de Enseñanza Media.
Entre las dos alternativas del colegio religioso, donde la disciplina era mayor, y la del Instituto –masculino o femenino-, donde el profesorado era más competente, la mayoría de los padres de cierto nivel social elegían de preferencia la primera. (2) La razón que solían invocar era la de que allí los hijos estaban “mas sujetos”, pero tanto o más pesaban las consideraciones de tipo clasista, especialmente cuando se trataba del bachillerato de una chica. Porque en este caso predominaba la opinión de la madre, más conservadora por convicción o por miedo de que su hija LE SALIERA RARA, perdiera el freno de la Religión y se contaminara de costumbres impropias de una señorita. En los Institutos de Segunda Enseñanza, generalmente ubicados en lugares provisionales y no muy confortables, la matrícula era notablemente más barata que en los colegios de monjas, y por eso había “mucha mezcla”, como solía decirse. (3) Acudían chicas de extracción rural o hijas de proletarios de dudosa ideología, cuyos modales y lenguaje eran más descarados, y a muchas de ellas las esperaban a la salida de clase chicos de su barrio con los que se iban tranquilamente de paseo.
What a lively and interesting discussion! I'm using a 1978 print edition of the book, I think it's the first edition, and it definitely says "le saliera rara", not "rana". Thanks to all who contributed.
...refers to the tale of the Frog Prince. You kiss the frog it turns into a Prince (or princess, if we reverse the gender roles 21st century style) if you're lucky. I see it as simply a metaphor for the mother's concern that her daughter might turn out an oddball, rebel, hippy or lefty (etc, pick your fave disparaging epithet) unless she attends a religious school.
Well, I would say it means "odd" in both cases. But to the young women Martín Gaite knew in the Salamanca of her youth, using the term of other young women, it meant unsociable, nun-like, whereas for the mothers it presumably meant anything outside the conventional ideas of their class.
Interesting passage you've quoted in your second answer. But it seems strange, to me at least, that if nuns were regarded as the epitome of "rareza" ("se daba por supuesto que las monjas eran raras"), one should send one's daughter to a religious school for fear of her ending up "rara", since that would guarantee that she would be educated by nuns. Unless what conservative mothers meant by "rara" was something different. (Or unless it should, after all, read "rana", though I must admit I don't believe that.)
Personally, I'd be very happy to settle for "odd". Actually I now find myself thinking it's the best word. But if it should prove to be "rana", then I think your suggestion would be fine, Karen.
Karen Vincent-Jones (X)
United Kingdom
I stand corrected!
12:48 Jun 9, 2014
If it really is 'le saliera rana' then a possible translation might be 'would turn out (to be) a disappointment (to her)'.
It may be a red herring, but it could be right and it wouldn't mean "frog"; if something or someone "te sale rana" it means they disappoint you, they don't turn out the way you hoped:
I can't believe that "frog" was meant. This must be a red herring! It seems much more likely that 'rara' is correct, and that 'odd', 'peculiar', or 'strange' is the intended meaning.
... is from the 80s, so it is possible that early drafts may have been handwritten, leaving room for error. One might argue that "le saliera RANA" is a more likely candidate than "rara", unless of course the author is tweaking the commonplace expression for effect. I'd like to know the asker's thoughts on this possibility.
"Que le saliera rana" is quite a plausible reading; it would mean that the daughter might turn out very different from what the mother was hoping: "que se le torciera". It's a common expression.
On the other hand, the only online copy of the book I can find has "rara".
And there's a published translation of this book by Margaret E. W. Jones, entitled Courtship Customs in Postwar Spain (2004), in which this bit is rendered as "was afraid that her daughter might turn out to be odd" (p. 85); whatever you think of this as a translation, it suggests that the translator was working from a text that read "rara". http://books.google.es/books?hl=es&id=te_DUAnsIB4C&q=daughte...
of the text provided by the asker may even have been altered /rana->rara) to accommodate the writer's own point of view, or the one he/she is trying to put across.
which version (rana/rara) is the true original, but find the image of mummy's little darling turning out to be a frog rather than a princess endearing. And it might put a different slant on the eventual translation.
and we get "le saliera rana": "...opinión de la madre, más conservadora por convicción o por miedo de que su hija le saliera rana, perdiera el freno de la Religión y se contaminara ..."
Was that what you were doing? It sounded to me as though you were pursuing your previous argument about the word "weird". You said it was an Americanism and modern in this sense. I think both these statements are palpably untrue. So despite having said I would leave it alone, I returned to make this point.
However, as you can see, I withdrew the reference to "falsehood and invention", which on reflection was rather unseemly and not entirely justified.
I said I was signing off, but since you've returned: It really depends what you mean by "historical" and "modern". Such words are blunt instruments. In the nineteenth century "weird" did primarily mean supernatural, but by the mid-twentieth century it was perfectly normal usage applied to people, meaning "strange".
Of course it is a matter of subjective judgement whether in a given period a word would have been used by this or that sort of person.
This is from An Incompleat Etonian by the British author Julia Frankau, published in 1909: "At close quarters she was weird, corrupt, unwholesome". It proves nothing, of course, though it is difficult to reconcile with the notion that in the 1950s or 1960s this usage was a modern Americanism.
Indeed, "weird" was already moving beyond its original meaning of supernatural by the 1820s
I have not convinced you and you have not convinced me. Never mind.
Karen Vincent-Jones (X)
United Kingdom
Context is all.
10:54 Jun 8, 2014
Charles' example comes from a cosmopolitan and well-educated author, precisely the kind of person that this mother is NOT. In my experience, such a woman would have resorted to euphemism- she would be afraid her daughter would 'pick up some strange ideas'.
This is defined in the Encyclopedia of Jazz (1956) — by a British author — as a "weird person". Certainly it was then colloquial; it was clearly establishing itself in the 1950s, and I can just imagine a respectable British (or American) mother of the period having heard the word and using it (adopting a consciously "modern" register) for the kind of people who frequent those degenerate jazz clubs: precisely the kind of thing she would have wanted her daughter to avoid. Such a mother with such a daughter would have said "me ha salido rara".
In short, Donal, I think your comment that the word seems "wildly inappropriate" is quite wrong. I have quite extensive experience of the speech of respectable ladies of a certain age and I can assure you that they don't speak like automata.
I'm very surprised that you consider "weird" modern and American. It's perfectly standard British English, in my experience, and is not marked as American in any of the reference books I've consulted. Moreover it is not new at all; it was well established and perfectly common, applied to people, before the mid-twentieth century. Here's one example among very many, from Harold Burgoyne Rattenbury's China, my China (1944):
"When I went to China in 1902 I found a strange contrast to all this. All my life there I've had the healthy knowledge, for an Englishman, [...] that I was a weird person with outlandish ways from far away over the ocean [...]". http://tinyurl.com/nz8pfz7
Donal: you've misconstrued "le saliera". This is an indirect form of "que me salga", which is what the imaginary mother would have said. "Le" refers the action to her (the mother). It's like saying "no me tardes", for example. Indeed, this is one of the elements that particularly marks the register as colloquial. It can't possibly mean "from it".
Karen Vincent-Jones (X)
United Kingdom
Too recent
10:12 Jun 8, 2014
I agree with DLyons. If we are talking about a conservative Spanish mother in the 1950s, I don't think 'wierd(o)' is at all the right register. It might fit for a conservative American mother in the 1990s.
The style of "que le saliera rara" is anything but formal; it's colloquial. It's free indirect style: the authentic voice of a conservative Spanish mother expressing her distaste and incomprehension of whatever falls outside her narrow-minded canons of respectability. I think such a mother in English would be quite likely to sum up such feelings with the word "weirdo": people who behave in ways she doesn't understand and deplores. The formal style of some of the suggestions here is quite unsuitable, in my opinion.
It's Carmen Martín Gaite, "Usos amorosos de la posguerra española".
Karen Vincent-Jones (X)
United Kingdom
Which war are we talking about here?
09:56 Jun 8, 2014
It would help to have a bit more context here. Is this an academic article, a historical diescription? Is this modern Spain, or 1930s civil war?
Automatic update in 00:
Answers
23 mins confidence: peer agreement (net): +2
would become difficult (to manage)
Explanation: I think you need something quite formal or stilted to fit with the register here. Also, "difficult to manage" fits with references to "disciplina" and "mas sujetos".
Karen Vincent-Jones (X) United Kingdom Local time: 05:57 Specializes in field Native speaker of: English PRO pts in category: 16
12 mins confidence:
emerge/end up unconventional/unladylike/strange
Explanation: "Off the wall", "downright weird" are probably a bit too strong.
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 1 hr (2014-06-08 10:51:20 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
My childhood neighbours would have used "strange"; "odd" would have been stronger.
DLyons Ireland Local time: 05:57 Native speaker of: English PRO pts in category: 18
8 mins confidence: peer agreement (net): +7
would turn out weird
Explanation: I can't think of a more formal option to "turn out", but I think this is the idea...
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 1 hr (2014-06-08 11:12:57 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
You could just use "strange" instead of "weird" if you wish. ;-)
Edward Tully Local time: 06:57 Specializes in field Native speaker of: English PRO pts in category: 282
peer agreement (net): +2
