Yesterday I was crossing a plaza when suddenly a random phrase crossed my mind: "are you feeling pastrami?". Then, as my native language is spanish (which makes writing in english completely a random thing) , I tried to translate those words. Nothing hard to do, or isn´t? My linguistic crossroad was based in the fact that there's more than a single translation possible.
So there I was, in the middle of the plaza and I said
-Whoa! wait a minute. Something is not right here.
I started to think and I found that the meaning of the phrase depended also on where I put the accent. So it had several meanings in english too, it wasn't a problem in the translation only.
It is not the same to ask putting the accent in "you" than putting it in "feeling"; if I ask "are YOU feeling pastrami?" I can be asking if the person is feeling like a pastrami, maybe that person has a mental disorder. But if i ask "are you FEELING pastrami?" I can be asking if the person is having a taste or a smell of pastrami (also that last sentence can be related to two possible meanings: to the act of taste or smell pastrami, or to taste or smell like pastrami).
So the problem resides in the english language, starting from those possible meanings, I can say: ¿Te sentís pastrami? o ¿estás sintiendo el pastrami?
If! if (if) there is a flaw in the space time continuum of the text, please let me know.
Nope, no pictures today.
Comentarios
"IT is not the same to ask..."
Opté por el genérico agradecimiento callejero, como cuando algún empleado/a público/a te dice "a ver mami, pasame el formulario".