Re: The cost of time

Wm. Annis wrote:


>In English one "spends" time.  Sometimes you pass time.
>
>It just occured to me I have no way in Vaior to say "I spent much of
>today reading."
>
>How do other languages handle this idea?  I'm thinking mostly about
>natlangs, but conlangs that have avoided the monetary associations
>would be interesting to me, too.

Spanish as best I recall is quite similar to Engl.--
gastar tiempo 'to spend time', pasar tiempo 'to pass time' (pasatiempo 'a
pastime'); but perder tiempo (to lose time) 'to waste time'.  I think _(me,
te, le etc) costó (mucho) tiempo_  'it cost (pronoun) (a lot of time)' i.e.
it took a lot of time...

(I've always liked _perder el tren_ 'to lose (i.e. miss) the train', but
I've never been sure if you can perder an appointment; you certainly can't
perder your mother, nor do you perder the target.  Oh the insanity of it
all)

There is a Span. idiom for "it takes (X amount of time) to do/go...' which
always flummoxed me.  This is _pita (time) vara_ 'to need (time) in order
to...' in Kash-- e.g. yapita nim lero vara cosa ri kavatuwe 'it takes 5 days
to go to Kavatu (dative)' and many permutations.

I don't have the other expressions yet in Kash, either, but they won't be
"monetary"; I suspect I'll go with "to lose" for "waste time" and "miss (the
train)".