 By Linda Hall de González
:: Unless we’re speaking of a charity – organizacíon benéfica, what everybody who is in business hopes for is a profit which, despite the tempting word, profeta, is ganancias or beneficios. Both are optimistically plural and close enough to an English-speaker’s gains or benefits to compensate for the inaptness of profeta, a word meaning prophet. These days, benefits summon up state handouts which, when they exist in Spain, are a sternly singular prestación social or subsidio. Plural benefits in Spanish are principally found in fringe benefits where you have the triple option of compensaciones adicionales, retribuciones en especie or the short, sharp extras.
It’s debatable whether it’s amusing or irritating when familiar-looking words aren’t what you’d assumed they would be. This occurs with contable whose resemblance to the arithmetically important contar – to count is enough to make you suspect that contable is a good translation for accountant. You’ll have can do better than that, though, because un contable is closer to a book-keeper and the sort of person who has the letters ACA after his or her name is un contable colegiado or colegiada, according to their gender. Other possibilities include contable auditor and contable auditora but, depending on circumstances, this could occasionally be un actuario or actuary.
A word that was bandied about with noticeable venom last June sounded phonetically close to squirrel but un esquirol is no bright-eyed bushy-tailed little creature that lives in trees and stores nuts, but a blackleg or scab who did not support the strike - huelga by the hauliers or transportistas. There was much talk at the time of los piquetes and, this time, it did mean pickets.
Jornal gives an impression of being connected to journal but here again you will be disappointed because the Spanish version is payment for a day’s work or the time put in by a worker each day. These terms now apply to any type of employment, but a person described as un jornalero continues to be a day-labourer who, more often than not, works on the land. The foregoing definitions mean that, by this stage it’s obvious that none of them will crop up in translations for a journalist, who is, instead, un periodista.
Labor is the type of labour associated with remunerated sweat of the brow but, in the past, the occupation of a stay-at-home wife was always described on official documents as ‘sus labores’. While un labor is also any type of needlework, sewing, embroidery or knitting, done either as a pastime or from necessity, the labores referred to in this context were habitually of the housekeeping variety.
An overall term for a worker or labourer is un obrero, but he will probably be less specialised than un albañil – bricklayer and could also be known as un peón. The term obra covers any piece of literature, music, art, drama or dance but it is also a building site although many of these, when you come to think of it, are masterpieces too.::
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