Re: CHAT: I need help with the concept "New World Spanish"
| From: | Roger Mills <romilly@...> |
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| Date: | Sunday, September 1, 2002, 23:00 |
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John Cowan wrote:
>Roberto Suarez Soto scripsit:
>
>> I agree with this. Saving a few dialectal differences,
>> "standard" spanish is the same, grammatically. In fact, you can read
>> books of south-american writers and books of spanish writers and the
>> only differences you'll find will be in some vocabulary, if any.
>
>And is it likely -- I'm talking about ordinary prose here, neither
>fine literature nor local dialect here -- that the vocabulary is
>going to line up with the Americans on one side of the line and the
>Peninsulars on the other?
>
>> (i.e., use "computadora" instead of "ordenador", and avoid
>> conflictive words like "coger").
>
>Seems like we're getting somewhere. Is "computadora" going to be
>unacceptable (odd-looking, strange, alienating, annoying) to readers
>in Spain?
>
I suppose it's possible that in some technical areas, vocabulary may differ
in minor ways. But would a reader really bristle and protest, refuse to
read further, on seeing "computadora" instead of "ordenador"? I just can't
see it. Surely people in a given field would be familiar with the
variations in vocab.in their field??
Perhaps, in whatever field you're dealing with, your American and Peninsular
writers could just agree to gloss the occasional conflicting term, e.g.
"......la xxxx (o sea, el yyyy)......". or find some neutral term that
everyone can agree on, e.g. "autobus" for camión/guagua (the latter
admittedly a regionalism that wouldn't be used in formal writing)....
Would a Brit. automaker protest and take umbrage if an American colleague
wrote to him about tires, fenders, trunks and hoods? Is that considered
"unacceptable"?? (It is true, that if GM sent a bunch of US-printed owners
manuals to the UK for mass distribution, then it would be a problem, a
question of intended audience.)
In the case of books actually imported from the UK, I don't recall ever
reading an American review that focuses on "unacceptable" British
usages/spellings.
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