Just Sayings...

I have always loved and been fascinated by language.  I mean, that's a large part of the reason I'm studying Spanish in the first place.  So there will probably be quite a few posts dedicated to the curious little side-streets and back-alleys of the Spanish language, which I perpetually enjoy exploring.  In that vein, here's a couple of neat sayings that they have here:

"De perdidos al río": This is a fun one; it translates literally to "from lost to the river."  To get a picture of what it means, imagine that you're lost in the jungle or something like that.  Suddenly, you come upon a river, but that doesn't help much since it's not on your map.  Of course, even if it was, it wouldn't matter since you threw away the map a long time ago.  What do you do now?  You say, "Well, I'm already hopelessly lost, I might as well just jump in the river!"  It's the kind of saying that I imagine would occur often in a game of poker.  You know, when you're down on your chips, and you just got dealt an awful hand, and the guy before you just raised on a bet that was already too high for you, and you know you should fold, but you laugh and say "De perdidos al río!  I'm all in!"

"Por si las moscas...":  This one's a little harder to explain.  It translates literally to "for if the flies..."  It's what you say when someone asks you why you take a seemingly unnecessary precaution in order to prevent a very unlikely occurrence.  In English, it would be like saying "Well, you never know what might happen..." with a spoonful of "Better safe than sorry" sprinkled on top to make the justification a little more palatable.

"Padrino":  What's fascinating about this word is the fact that I can't think of a good English equivalent.  That doesn't mean that there's no translation; the word translates literally as "godfather."  And yes, just like in English, you can use it to talk about a very specific type of godfather, capiche?  But usually, the word refers to a man who is asked by a child's parents if he will be the baby's padrino.  The padrino is present at the child's baptism and other important milestones, he takes a special interest in the child, and he becomes a close friend of the family (if he wasn't already).  I know some American parents choose godparents for their kids (at least, my parents did), but in Spain it's a totally different concept.  And although it was originally a religious tradition, it still seems pretty strong in a country that has largely left its Roman Catholic roots.  Even my host-family's mother, an avowed Atheist, still chose godfathers for her children.

Which brings me to my favorite, and final, saying.  I learned it from Jesús, an older man who happens to be the padrino of one of the children in my host-family.  And this saying translates perfectly into English: "When you're young, you can't listen; when you're old, you can't hear."  Well-spoken, indeed. :^)