Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2005/08/17

[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]

Subject: [Leica] Very OT: native Spanish speaker?
From: reid at mejac.palo-alto.ca.us (Brian Reid)
Date: Wed Aug 17 10:54:42 2005

Are there any native Spanish speakers out there and awake? I have a complex 
language question that is utterly unrelated to Leicas, but this is the only 
place I can think of where I might find a native Spanish speaker.

I'm helping put together a magazine for a church diocese. The bishop has 
written a column titled "the mitre box". This is a complex pun, because a 
mitre is the bishop's badge of office, and a mitre box is a carpenter's 
tool, and a phrase ending in "box", like "soap box" or "press box", implies 
the place from which a person speaks.

I've paid a translator to translate the column into Spanish (this diocese 
has many Spanish speakers in it) but the translator is stumped by the title. 
(I can read Spanish fairly well, but when I write in Spanish, I don't fool 
anyone).

I've come up with an idea, and my question for a native speaker of Spanish 
is whether or not my idea is stupid.

The Spanish term for "mitre box" is "la caja de ingletes".
The Spanish term for a bishop's mitre is "el inglete".

If I were to translate that title as "la casa de ingletes" (changing caja to 
casa), would a native speaker of Spanish recognize this as a pun, or would 
it just seem illiterate?

Brian
LUG saloon keeper

Replies: Reply from lmc at interlink.es (Luis Miguel Castañeda) ([Leica] Very OT: native Spanish speaker?)
Reply from eperea at walkereng.com (Emilio Perea) ([Leica] Very OT: native Spanish speaker?)