{"id":392,"date":"2012-02-04T10:41:28","date_gmt":"2012-02-04T08:41:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/?p=392"},"modified":"2012-02-04T10:41:28","modified_gmt":"2012-02-04T08:41:28","slug":"since-and-by-and-other-forms-of-linguistic-snobbery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/2012\/02\/04\/since-and-by-and-other-forms-of-linguistic-snobbery\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018SINCE\u2019 AND \u2018BY,\u2019 AND OTHER FORMS OF LINGUISTIC SNOBBERY… <\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"

I see someone carrying a bag with a Spanish brand name on it \u2013Massimo Dutti?\u2013 followed by the word \u2018since\u2019 and a year number. I cringe, almost outwardly. A web in Spanish announces the new collection \u2018Be my Valentine by Bershka\u2019 and I double cringe (I heard someone described on Tele5 as a very intelligent person: \u2018one of the few people in Spain who can pronounce Bershka\u2019…). Although Zara designs always fit me very poorly, I have nothing against Inditex (who, for the absent-minded, also owns Dutti and Bershka); I am, however, stubbornly prejudiced against linguistic snobbery. I find the snooty (miss)use of \u2018since\u2019 and \u2018by\u2019 particularly obnoxious.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s new about this? Nothing, really. I just wonder whether it\u2019s just me or, whether all non-native English philologists are plagued by the same prejudice. I see people on the street with silly T-shirts carrying a stupid message in English and I have to stop myself from challenging them: would you wear a T-shirt like that in a language you speak? Do you actually know what that<\/em> means? Perhaps I should feign extreme surprise or disgust and leave them feeling there\u2019s something wrong with the darn T-shirt… (A \u2013male\u2013 student in my Department wears a T-shirt announcing \u2018I\u2019m still a good investment\u2019 against the background of a graphic showing financial heavy loses, but that\u2019s ok: it\u2019s witty and he knows exactly<\/em> why he\u2019s wearing that…).<\/p>\n

Back to \u2018since\u2019 and \u2018by\u2019. I don\u2019t understand what is wrong with the word \u2018desde\u2019 (or Catalan \u2018des de\u2019). Does it sound old-fashioned (Vda. de P\u00e9rez e Hijos, desde 1886)? Is it a paralyzing fear that people in, say, Finland, will be mystified by what \u2018desde\u2019 followed by a year number might mean? As I gather, everyone has learned the meaning of \u2018since\u2019 by seeing this word between a brand name and a date in labels in English. How come I don\u2019t know how to write \u2018since\u2019 in 12 different languages in this global world of ours? (Nokia ***** 1865? Yes, 1865!)<\/p>\n

\u2018By\u2019 is a slightly different kettle of fish. It is, of course, short for \u2018designed by\u2019 and I realise that Spanish \u2018por\u2019 fits only awkwardly the sense of the phrase. \u2018Vueling by Custo,\u2019 in reference to the designs produced to decorate some of this not-so-low-cost airline\u2019s planes by Catalan designer Custo(dio) Dalmau, is a particularly mindboggling form of linguistic snobbery with an attempt at wit (how does Vueling sound to a native English-speaker?). \u2018Un vestido de Gaultier,\u2019 however, still sounds to me better than \u2018Un vestido by Gaultier\u2019 though I know that soon we\u2019ll all speak like Tamara Falc\u00f3 \u2013on a bad day. \u2018Rihanna by Armani Underwear\u2019 as seen in a web in Spanish<\/em> overwhelms me, as this means \u2018En esta campa\u00f1a la cantante Rihanna nos vende ropa interior dise\u00f1ada por Armani\u2019 (or was Rihanna herself designed by Armani in his underwear???). Are ads for perfurme to be blamed for this unfortunate trendy use of \u2018by\u2019? When did \u2018de Paco Rabanne\u2019 become \u2018by Paco Rabanne\u2019 in Spain? I seem to have noticed only recently…<\/p>\n

End of today\u2019s entry for The Joys of English Literature<\/em> \u2018por\u2019 Sara Mart\u00edn, \u2018desde\u2019 2010 (as you can see, I\u2019ve been marking essays all day long, needed to think of something else…)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I see someone carrying a bag with a Spanish brand name on it \u2013Massimo Dutti?\u2013 followed by the word \u2018since\u2019 and a year number. I cringe, almost outwardly. A web in Spanish announces the new collection \u2018Be my Valentine by Bershka\u2019 and I double cringe (I heard someone described on Tele5 as a very intelligent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":98,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/98"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}