Hey there, welcome back! Thanks for continuing reading and to any new readers, welcome too!

So. Parachutes.

Having a conversation with my brother a couple of months ago, the roots of the word came up. As they do. Parachute comes from chuter in French, which means to fall, and the prefix, para, means against or stop. So; stop your fall. Makes sense. Parachute is used in English, clearly directly from the French. Otherwise, the word would be parafall, which incidentally would be much clearer to English speakers than the chute part, which we probably don’t even question, or know the meaning of in French. But the word clearly has its logic. Parar in Spanish, for example, is the verb meaning to stop. And we say paracaidas, meaning stop falls. All coming from Greek or Latin, or whatever dead language! But that’s the thing. They are not dead languages, are they? They live on in ours. And that’s pretty impressive.

And then we got on to parasol. That’s the word in English for the Spanish word sombrilla, (shademaker, more or less), though in English it actually sounds Spanish, (meaning against the sun), doesn’t it? And yet they don’t say that in Spanish. And what about umbrella? In French parapluie, against the rain, in Spanish paraguas, against the water, in English, umbrella, umber coming from the Germanic, relating to shade… So maybe the word parasol in English should actually be umbrella? And what we understand as umbrella should actually be parawater, or pararain? Oh it’s so confusing.

What about your windscreen in your car? It is a screen against the wind. Makes sense. In Spanish it’s a parabrisas. Against the breeze. Why don’t we say parawind, or parabreeze? Hey, we say parasol, don’t we? So why not?

But para also means next to! Just to complicate life. Paraphrase, to make a similar phrase. Parafarmacia, in Spanish is like some departments of Boots in the UK. It’s basically a chemist without medicine. A place that sells face creams, dental hygiene, vitamin supplements… Just no prescriptions. So, next to a pharmacy. Not against it. Unless you’re in competition, I suppose…

Anyway, I digress. Just wanted to give a taster of what I’ll be looking at, namely curiosities of language, among other things.

Why is all this so important to me? Why am I fascinated by language? Apart from having a bit of fun with it? Well, I believe that knowing where we come from linguistically, the influences coming from so many different cultures, tells us so much about our own culture, from the beginnings to the present. It is a route map that leads us to who we are. And maybe it gives us some insight into how the future will develop. We constantly see linguistic developments and changes, whether that be through social media, the vernacular or words and phrases that enter the dictionary based on common usage. So looking into those roots, why and how our language changes is not only fascinating, but necessary, to my mind.

Hence the Espanglisher blog and podcast. But mainly, let’s face it, Espanglisher is an outlet for my passions, the questions I ask myself and my love of writing and chatting! Plus all of the above.

In short, (or long), Espanglisher is back. With some of the old favourites but some differences too. This season, the blog will be an extension of the podcast, available below. There will be transcripts of the interviews from the podcast, (in English about language and culture in English-speaking countries and Spain), for anyone who needs or wants them, with some comments on the language used. And there will also be various musings about language and culture relating to the podcast topic. So the idea is that you can listen to and read about different content relating to the same topic.

As to my writing, for those of you who have read me before, I am working on some stuff which I hope to give you some tasters of during the season…

So we’re back on Friday 31st of October. And yes, I’m aware that Espanglisher Season 3’s launch date is Halloween… But to be honest, Halloween was never really a thing when and where I grew up, so there is no reason for the launch date, other than I wanted to kick off before November… Cutting it fine!

I’m really looking forward to this season and I hope it will be of interest!

Until the 31st of October!

NEW PODCAST AVAILABLE! At links below and on Spotify

Listen here:

Music: “Speakeasy” and “Skating Squirrels” by Shane Ivers – https://www.silvermansound.com

Espanglisher Promo Season 3