Dawn

Dawn

Monday, April 27, 2009

There were two peaks in hits to my blog during the past few days. Firstly, when I referred to Basque terrorists. And, secondly, when I quoted the word ‘fuck’. Now, if I could only think of a sentence combining all of these, I’d have it made.

Talking of the word ‘fuck’ or, rather, of its Spanish equivalent ‘joder’, reader Ferrolano writes to say, in effect, that we shouldn’t be too judgmental as it doesn’t have the same force as its English equivalent and really means something like merely ‘screw’. Putting this another way, the word ‘joder’ doesn’t have the same taboo status as the English word ‘fuck’ just about still has. But this cuts both ways. The worst thing you can call anyone in Spain is ‘cabrón’. Or ‘billy goat’ to us Anglos. I think I’m right in saying this has nil taboo status in English anywhere in the world. And so is unlikely to produce the same reaction as it does here.

I believe that the effect of ‘cabrón’ is related to the connotation that the insultee has been cuckolded by someone with whom his wife is enjoying a spot of horizontal jogging. In other words, he’s had the (goat-like) horns put on him.

Which, oddly enough, takes us back to Salamanca. For I was surprised to see this bas-relief on one of the wonderful plateresque facades there. All of its many companions seemed to be saints but, personally, I’m not aware that any of these either had real horns or was notorious for having an easy wife. So I’m left wondering whether it isn’t really meant to be the devil. Who did (does?) have horns but is not known to have ever got married. The rather disturbing aspect of this head and shoulders is that the book being read seems to have Hebrew characters in it. Could this possibly be right? Can anyone provide a welcome insight or two?


Finally . . . This afternoon I’ve received two messages from a bank with which I don’t have an account saying my credit card has been used for purchases in local shops. They quote the last number of the card, which bears no relation to mine. I assume it’s some sort of scam designed to make me respond and incur a hefty phone charge. At least, I hope it is as, otherwise, I’m already 450 euros down.


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