Of mountains, molehills, and water glasses: learning to control runaway thoughts

Pablo J. Davis

Enlace para espanol/Link here for Spanish

Like a seed lying dormant in the ground, that germinates and finally penetrates through the soil, a parent’s words and lessons can take years, even decades, for the child—now a grown woman or man—to consciously remember, to grasp their meaning and apply them to living.

“Nothing is eaten as hot as it’s cooked”: a father’s distant words remembered, his version of a French saying learned in post-World War II Europe: Rien ne se mange aussi chaud comme il est cuit. An unexpected vision of my father at age 20—a photograph of him in his Army uniform, young and happy, received from my cousin yesterday, on Veteran’s Day—somehow led me to that long-ago saying of his.

(The poet Samuel Hazo’s unforgettable verses from “The Torch of Blood” echo in the mind’s ear: “Before or after Abraham,/what is the resurrection and the life/except a father’s word/remembered in his son?”)

“Nothing is eaten as hot…”: he would say it when his son was worried the night before a difficult test, or over a bigger classmate’s challenge to a fistfight, or being in trouble with a teacher. What we dread, he was saying in his way, is almost never as terrible as we imagine.

“Hold on a minute, thought! Let me see who you are, what you are about. Let me examine you….” The words of the philosopher Epictetus help us calm our anxieties and control runaway thoughts. Photograph ©2021, Pablo J. Davis. All rights reserved.

English has no close equivalent. True, there’s “Don’t make a mountain out of a molehill”—the “molehill” some unpleasant incident, the “mountain” an overly angry or dramatic reaction. The phrase looks back at what has happened, though it could probably also apply, like Rien ne se mange, to the anticipation of pain.

The phrase “to talk someone down” may refer to that “mountain” of overreaction.

Sp. No te ahogues en un vaso de agua, literally “Don’t drown in a glass of water” is likewise about proportionality. The very ridiculousness of the image makes for a vividly effective mind-picture of (and caution against) overreaction.

Our fears are not ridiculous, though. The precious human faculty of imagination is not only creative and inspiring—it also has the  power to terrify us. Two thousand years ago, that unparalleled teacher, the Stoic philosopher Epictetus, urged his disciples to learn to calm fear and control runaway thoughts: “Don’t let the intensity of your thoughts sweep you away. Instead, say: ‘Hold on a minute, thought! Let me see who you are, what you are about. Let me examine you and put you to the test.’” (Discourses II.18.24–25). Rien ne se mange….

A version of this essay is scheduled for publication in La Prensa Latina https://www.laprensalatina.com on November 21, 2021.

Tuesday the 13th… the Friday the 13th of the Spanish-speaking world (and vice-versa)

ENLACE AQUI PARA ESPAÑOL/LINK HERE FOR SPANISH

Imagine you’re translating a document, from English into Spanish. Say it’s a letter, dated Tuesday, August 13, 2013 (that’s today).  How do you translate that into Spanish? Well, that’s not too difficult: you might render it as ‘martes, 13 agosto 2013’.

Martes 13, Tuesday the 13th: a combination of day and date that are the object of widely-held popular superstition in the Spanish-speaking world.

(Like November 2012, the month of January 1931 had a ‘martes 13’ – Tuesday the 13th. By the famed artist and cartoonist Florencio Molina Campos, whose humorous but loving depictions of old-time scenes and characters of the  Pampa have adorned wall calendars in Argentina for the better part of a century. Molina Campos was admired by Walt Disney, with whom he struck up a friendship.)

The bad luck commonly held to attach to ‘martes 13’ actually comes in a double dose. To the triskaidekafobia (a terrific Greek word, composed of thirteen+fear, that has the lovely property of sounding exactly like the thing it designates) that Hispanic/Latin American culture shares with Anglo-Saxon and many others across the world, is added a negative apprehension surrounding Tuesday. Tuesday aversion is not common in the English-speaking world (though in the cycle of the work week, it’s certainly not many people’s favorite day). Think of the nursery rhyme foretelling a child’s fortune from the day of its birth (“Tuesday’s child is full of grace…”), or old Solomon Grundy who was “christened on Tuesday”.

In Spanish, though, the name for the second day following the Christian Sabbath is martes, Mars’s Day.  Around this deity, most commonly known as the Roman god of war (equivalent to the Greeks’ Ares), spin a series of negative qualities: aggression, duplicity, hostility, selfishness. Reputedly despised by both his parents, Zeus and Hera, Mars could be worshipped for his valor and power (and apparently Venus did so), but perhaps more often feared. Herein lies at least part of the reason why Tuesday’s stock is so low in Hispanic-Latin American culture. “Día martes,” goes the well-known folk saying reflecting this, “no te cases ni te embarques” [On Tuesday, marry not, nor set sail].

So, thinking of all these associations, let’s go back to our little translation problem. Only now, let’s imagine the year is not 2012 but rather 1980, and what we need to ‘move across’ (the original, physical meaning of ‘translate‘) from English to Spanish is not the date of a letter but the title of a movie. Specifically, director Sean Cunningham’s newly-released horror flick Friday the 13th (still with us almost a third of a century later, having reached twelve installments and a grand total of eleven different directors; is anyone truly in suspense over whether there will be a Part 13?).

With strict ‘dictionary accuracy’, we could release the film under the title Viernes 13.  But to tap into the deeper resonances within Hispanic/Latin American culture, maybe we would better off shifting the day of the week to Tuesday and rendering the title as Martes 13.  And that’s exactly what happened in Peru, Argentina, Uruguay, and other countries of the Spanish-speaking world. However, the direct or ‘dictionary’ translation was used in still other countries, including Mexico and Spain.

One result of this convoluted set of circumstances: the association of Friday the 13th with bad luck, not native to Hispanic/Latin American culture, has to some extent been ‘imported’ from the English-speaking world—due to the power of what is often called popular, and might more accurately be termed commercial, culture.

And, let us not forget, it’s due also to the influence of an often overlooked group of ‘unacknowledged legislators’: members of the translators’ profession, whose decisions can have a significant impact on human affairs. What’s at stake is clearer when we think of the texts of laws and treaties, or the way that a statesman’s words are translated in a tense international negotiation. But even in this seemingly trivial example of a movie title, there are ‘real world’ implications. People’s likelihood of making certain personal or economic decisions—travel, a purchase, an apartment rental—is influenced by beliefs regarding numbers, dates, days of the week.

More adventures in the world of translation, this science, craft, and art all at the same time! And never more challenging than when cultural phenomena are what we’re translating.

© Copyright 2013 by Pablo J. Davis. All Rights Reserved.

A version of this essay appeared at https://interfluency.wordpress.com on Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2011 and Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2012.

Pablo J. Davis, PhD, CT is an ATA (American Translators Association) Certified Translator, English>Spanish, and a Supreme Court of Tennessee Certified Interpreter, English<>Spanish. With over 20 years of experience and particular specialties in the legal, business, and medical fields. Contact info@interfluency.com or 901-288-3018 if you need world-class translation or interpreting between the English and Spanish languages. Through his company Interfluency Translation+Culture, he aso delivers interactive, informative, and inspiring cultural-awareness training to businesses, churches, schools, and government agencies.

Tuesday the 13th… the Friday the 13th of the Spanish-speaking world (and vice-versa)

ENLACE AQUI PARA ESPAÑOL/LINK HERE FOR SPANISH

Imagine you’re translating a document, from English into Spanish. Say it’s a letter, dated Tuesday, November 13, 2012 (that’s today).  How do you translate that into Spanish? Well, that’s not too difficult: you’d render it as ‘martes, 13 noviembre 2012’.

Martes 13, Tuesday the 13th: a combination of day and date that are the object of widely-held popular superstition in the Spanish-speaking world.

(Like November 2012, the month of January 1931 had a ‘martes 13’ – Tuesday the 13th. By the famed artist and cartoonist Florencio Molina Campos, whose humorous but loving depictions of old-time scenes and characters of the  Pampa have adorned wall calendars in Argentina for the better part of a century. Molina Campos was admired by Walt Disney, with whom he struck up a friendship.)

The bad luck commonly held to attach to ‘martes 13’ actually comes in a double dose. To the triskaidekafobia (a terrific Greek word, composed of thirteen+fear, that has the lovely property of sounding exactly like the thing it designates) that Hispanic/Latin American culture shares with Anglo-Saxon and many others across the world, is added a negative apprehension surrounding Tuesday. Tuesday aversion is not common in the English-speaking world (though in the cycle of the work week, it’s certainly not many people’s favorite day). Think of the nursery rhyme foretelling a child’s fortune from the day of its birth (“Tuesday’s child is full of grace…”), or old Solomon Grundy who was “christened on Tuesday”.

In Spanish, though, the name for the second day following the Christian Sabbath is martes, Mars’s Day.  Around this deity, most commonly known as the Roman god of war (equivalent to the Greeks’ Ares), spin a series of negative qualities: aggression, duplicity, hostility, selfishness. Reputedly despised by both his parents, Zeus and Hera, Mars could be worshipped for his valor and power (and apparently Venus did so), but perhaps more often feared. Herein lies at least part of the reason why Tuesday’s stock is so low in Hispanic-Latin American culture. “Día martes,” goes the well-known folk saying reflecting this, “no te cases ni te embarques” [On Tuesday, marry not nor set sail].

So, thinking of all these associations, let’s go back to our little translation problem. Only now, let’s imagine the year is not 2012 but rather 1980, and what we need to ‘move across’ (the original, physical meaning of ‘translate‘) from English to Spanish is not the date of a letter but the title of a movie. Specifically, director Sean Cunningham’s newly-released horror flick Friday the 13th (still with us almost a third of a century later, having reached twelve installments and a grand total of eleven different directors; is anyone truly in suspense over whether there will be a Part 13?).

With strict ‘dictionary accuracy’, we could release the film under the title Viernes 13.  But to tap into the deeper resonances within Hispanic/Latin American culture, maybe we would better off shifting the day of the week to Tuesday and rendering the title as Martes 13.  And that’s exactly what happened in Peru, Argentina, Uruguay, and other countries of the Spanish-speaking world. However, the direct or ‘dictionary’ translation was used in still other countries, including Mexico and Spain.

One result of this convoluted set of circumstances: the association of Friday the 13th with bad luck, not native to Hispanic/Latin American culture, has to some extent been ‘imported’ from the English-speaking world—due to the power of what is often called popular, and might more accurately be termed commercial, culture.

And, let us not forget, it’s due also to the influence of an often overlooked group of ‘unacknowledged legislators’: members of the translators’ profession, whose decisions can have a significant impact on human affairs. What’s at stake is clearer when we think of the texts of laws and treaties, or the way that a statesman’s words are translated in a tense international negotiation. But even in this seemingly trivial example of a movie title, there are ‘real world’ implications. People’s likelihood of making certain personal or economic decisions—travel, a purchase, an apartment rental—is influenced by beliefs regarding numbers, dates, days of the week.

More adventures in the world of translation, this science, craft, and art all at the same time! And never more challenging than when cultural phenomena are what we’re translating.

© Copyright 2012 by Pablo J. Davis. All Rights Reserved.

A version of this essay appeared at https://interfluency.wordpress.com on Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2011.

Pablo J. Davis, PhD, CT is an ATA (American Translators Association) Certified Translator, English>Spanish, and a Supreme Court of Tennessee Certified Interpreter, English<>Spanish. With over 20 years of experience, he has particular specialties in the legal, business, and medical fields. Contact info@interfluency.com or 901-288-3018 if you need world-class translation or interpreting between the English and Spanish languages. His company Interfluency Translation+Culture also delivers interactive, informative, and inspiring cultural-awareness training to businesses, churches, schools, and government agencies.