Some Spanish words just appeal to you, perhaps because of the context in which you first hear them.
One of my favourites is muermo. The Collins tells us that as an adjective it means boring and as a noun, a bore.
Not very exciting. Yet when I first heard it, I couldn´t stop laughing for days. Here´s why.
A few years ago, a rather up herself acquaintance of mine was having some work done around her very fetching duplex home.
The builder was of the bum-crack variety (la hucha, or money bank, graphically self-explanatory, ¿no?) and completely unimpressed by the finesse of the fifty-something… we shall call her Monica. He was also rather impertinent.
Slightly rattled by this, and perhaps to drive home how uncouth she found him, Monica put on some classical music.
“Imagine,” she later told me. “Poor Madame Butterfly is falling on her dagger to save her honour and this philistine slouches past me, fag in mouth, and says, “Vaya muermo de música.”
Translators, I´m sure you can do better than me but I´d render the builder´s musical critique very loosely as “Just shoot me already.”
And so to Spain´s entry this weekend in Eurovision, Pastora Soler´s Quédate conmigo. It was boring and predictable. I dislike Soler´s voice since, in my view, it would better serve her should she wish to seek employment as a coalman (sorry, coalperson).
Even the song title was unfortunate as quedarse con alguien has two meanings. One is “to stay with someone” and the second is “to take the piss out of somebody”, as in:
¿Te estás quedando conmigo?
Are you taking the piss out of me?
Considering the fantastic music made every day in Spain, I felt it was a piss-take to send this singer and this song to Aserb… Ayzer… Eurasia.
So I had the perfect phrase for the whole thing.
Vaya muermo de música.
And in the spirit of the second, irreverent meaning of quedarse con alguien, check out this vid.
About Mo
I agree with you that “muermo” is a funny word!
However I must point out that you’re not becoming “una muerma” (even though being a woman), but “un muermo de tía”. Muerma sounds rather weird. It would be also correct saying “¡Vaya muermazo de cosa/persona… whatever”
Thanks Ceravieja – I really wasn´t sure about that at all and should have asked my hubby. And I hope not to become un muermo de tía though some days I can´t avoid it!
A few more nuggets of info for the old spreadsheet there. Thanks .Month (however I can’t see how Soler’s pitiiful attempt at entertainment this weekend was any worse than the rest
I must be getting old and boring (a muerma) but I enjoyed the Eurovision Song contest as it used to be known. Funnily, though, the only two countries with English as their native language did very badly and all these new, developing countries singing doggerel in English streaked away ahead of us! What about the Hump though? Cringe-worthy.
My father was a tradesman and his reaction to snobby places that provided no refreshment was: some hoose this! Nae tea??
O I quite see your father´s point. I doubt much refreshment was provided by my acquaintance with the exception of The Craitur. It all went down the crack there.
Ms. Dolan , I have been monitoring your blogs for quite some time , but have not been able to comment upon your articles until now,because I have been constrained by various personal events from doing so. However, I hope to become a regular from now on. I’m unsure if that is going to be an altogether good thing for either of us, but you have the ultimate sanction of moderator to put me in my place, should I prove to be more of an annoyance than I am worth. .
So, whit ur ye worth?
No more nor less than anyone else.
Thanks for asking.
Having been a member of the breed you so eloquently describe in your anecdote, (the builder, not la Senora.) and also an aficionado of classical music; (the really good stuff that I esteem, not the really dire crap that most with far less taste pretend to like and understand.) May I make so bold as to translate the offending phrase into what I guess to be your own earthy native patois .
Builder, in a slightly more than Soto Voce tone: “Haw Hen, :at’s pure keech Byra wey !*
Respecters of neither rank nor station those builder chappies.
Keep up the good work Mo.
I see you are a translatadater of some worse, I mean worth, after all. Pure keech is exactly the phrase I was keeching, oh I beg your pardon, seeking. And ´tis trés vrai, tis all wonky, n´ at.
Of course I´ve a cheek to talk after what the UK offered.
Muermos….Great word……..one of my cuñados uses it alot!!
Can´t believe I only learned it when I came to Spain this time.