Hi, Can anybody tell me an equivalent Spanish figure of speech for DON’T RAIN ON MY PARADE.
Thanks

At a guess I’d say we’re all flummoxed, having been inculcated that the rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain. And thus not on the parade.

Azh
("How kind of you to let me come ... ")

Hmm..never thought about that…maybe the rain does stay on the plain!  Anyway, the only other thing I can think of is the Spanish word "AGUAFIESTAS" which  I always thought had kind of the meaning "party-pooper"  But I don’ think that’s really the same thing. By the way, I am a Spanish teacher so you’d think I’d know this!  But I’m  a "gringa" and always learning.  But I thank you all for your replies!

Sounds the same to me.  Party-pooper, parade-rainer… same difference.

-Tim

[quote author=Katy link=board=idiom;num=1125876237;start=0#4 date=09/05/05 at 19:12:12]
wet blanket, can these not have equivalents in Spanish?

I would have thought that "raining on <a> parade" was more heinous than merely being a party-pooper or wet blanket.

To me it certainly implies a degree of intention that is largely missing from the other two expressions. A sense, if you will, of someone who sets out to deliberately annoy or repress the speaker.

An equivalent (though coarser) expression is "p!ss in my pocket".  "Who asked you to p!ss in my pocket?" which certainly implies an intention on the part of the p!sser to, shall we say "dampen" the enthusiasm of the p!ssee.

Azh
(whose micturitions are nothing like plurdled gabbleblotchets, with or without lurgid bees)

edited to clarify ... the autocensor changed the "p!ss" to "tinkle", which doesn’t convey the meaning at all!

Thanks one and all for the ideas.  "wet blanket" and "don’t piss in my pocket"—-the latter, I must say, I never heard!  Still looking for the Spanish equivalent, but the suggestions in English do give me ideas.  I checked with a friend of mine who’s from Peru and even she couldn’t come up with the Spanish for "Don’t rain on my parade".  She feels "aguafiestas"(party pooper) is the best I can do.  But we shall see!  

It’s interesting—I had a teacheriin a translation class once (Spanish/English) who said "there’s no such thing as a synonym".  In other words, every word has its own nuance or reason for being. Same with expressions, I suppose. And maybe like jokes, translating figures of speech etc—something gets lost in translation.

De todos modos,gracias por las ideas.

It would be very cool if languages were nothing more than a list of corresponding words to learn and remember, but that’s not the way it is, I’m afraid.

Brazilian dude, whose mother tongue makes no differentiation between a ladder and stairs but knows perfectly well which is which.

...but Dude, what if you had been reading something for days thinking the author was talking about stairs, only to find out later in the book (after context was clearer) it was a ladder all along…?!

That would leave me less than happy.

I can’t help thinking of the phrase "Jacob’s Ladder", which has been depicted variously as a stairway or a ladder…

-Tim

My life wouldn’t really change because of that, Tim.  Of course, if he was talking about carrying a "escada", it could only be a ladder, if he was climbing a "escada", it could be either, but I guess it depends on where he was going, if he was going up on the roof, of course that’s a ladder (or isn’t it?), now if he was going to the second floor, I bet that would be the stairs.

Brazilian dude

Do you get confused for only having one verb be and one verb know, whereas we have two? I don’t think so.

But verbs are different than nouns.  (There’s some insight for you—write it down!)

Verbs should work best in context.  Nouns should not require context to clearly state what you mean.

But I get a clue of what you are saying, anyway.

I was thinking of multi-story buildings that have the metal fire escape ladders on the outside, the stairs on the inside, and the elevator in some cases.  In English we can say "take the ladder" meaning "use it" (there’s that ‘verbs-in-context’ thing), but I guess you would use a specific verb to put the noun in context…

-Tim

English we can say "take the ladder" meaning "use it" (there’s that ‘verbs-in-context’ thing), but I guess you would use a specific verb to put the noun in context…

Right, "vá pela escada (externa/de incêndio)" or "use a escada (externa/de incêndio)".

Brazilian dude

Verbs should work best in context.  Nouns should not require context to clearly state what you mean.

One for you, then, big guy.  How do you know whether someone’s glasses are that person’s drinking vessels or spectacles?  We have two words for that.

Brazilian dude

Thank you, Katy, I was aware that spectacles (or specs for short) are old-fashioned, and I thought eyeglasses was too pedestrian to use here.

Brazilian dude

What’s with me and pedestrian lately?  I don’t have a car myself.

One of the reasons that we don’t get "glasses that you wear" confused with "glasses that you drink out of" is context. That would also be how the stairs and ladders thing escapes confusion.

"Are you wearing your glasses?" can only have one meaning, because one doesn’t "wear" a drinking glass.

"Can I refill your glasses?" when said by a host or hostess with bottle, carafe or jug in hand is also fairly unambiguous, when he or she is addressing a group of guests.

In most circumstances, one would refer to a (drinking) glass in the singular, which also helps distinguish between them. "Where is your glass?" needs no disambiguation from "Where are your glasses?".

After a few glasses one might well enquire "Where is the bathroom?" and be told by the host "Up the stairs and to the left". If we used the same word for "stairs" as for "ladder", it would be relatively clear that "stairs" were meant in this context, as people rarely have ladders standing around indoors, and one  even more rarely finds bathrooms at the top of them.

As we learned at Bible college, context is everything (Although back then it was in the context of translating a given word using a concordance). The acronym we were taught was COMB - context, other, meaning, background. Most of the time we unconsciously do this as we hear someone speak. (The "other" referred to in this context is "other verses of scripture which support this interpretation".)

With reference to the glasses one wears, "specs", it amuses me that we continue to call them such even though in most cases they are no longer made of glass.

However, if we referred to them as "plastics", that would open up an entirer ‘nother can of worms, which I’m not going to even speculate about now.

Azh
(remembering the lens grinder who fell into his machine and made a spectacle of himself)