La Plume de ma Tante

Each morning I receive an email giving me my 'Word of the Day' in Spanish. I'm always surprised by what I receive because although I have a reasonable vocabulary in Spanish, I usually get delivered with a word I've not before encountered. However, it's quite amusing to discover the context in which the authors decide to place the word – it's normally a sentence so obscure and bizarre that it's hard to envisage a circumstance in which it might be used. The other day I had 'tiznar' which means 'to blacken' and the phrase was "If the kitchen containers become black from the smoke of the flame, the combustion isn't good". Hmm, I suppose if I'm sitting in a tapas bar in Madrid I could always pop my head into the kitchen and call out to the chef: "Oi, Pedro! Here's a quick tip for you - si los recipientes de cocina se tiznan por el humo de la llama, la combustión no está siendo buena". I suspect that I'd probably get a handful of patatas bravas thrown at my head.

Today's word is 'vinagre' which means 'vinegar' (quel surpris, as they would say in France). And here's the context: "More flies fall in a drop of honey than in a barrel of vinegar". Yes, I can easily understand the value of learning this phrase. Imagine sitting at a shaded table outside a small Valencian restaurant and being troubled by flies. On the table is a jar of vinegar. How impressed my travelling companions will be when I can turn to the young camarero and say "Oi, Pedro! Remove this vinegar and replace it with a drop of honey on the tablecloth. For don't you know, young man, that caen más moscas en una gota de miel, que en un barril de vinagre?"

I am teased by the promise that tomorrow's word will be 'alcista' which means 'upward trend.' I can't wait to see what essential phrase I'll be learning about that one. Olé!