Savages!

No country for consonants

(Audio above recorded at the show in Jerez.)

Like people, words travel. They find new lives in other lands, changing what they sound like, what they look like, even what they mean. The “correct” version of a word is simply the version that is used in the place where you are. That’s it. Here in Andalusia, if we’re speaking Spanish, it’s not my place to correct my mother-in-law’s pronunciation of a recently adopted English word.

Now, if my mother-in-law were a student of mine, I would have to correct her. In the classroom, I would have to take the Andaluz out of her English. I would have to convert her “marfo” into a “smartphone”; her “Cro Twee” into a “Croft Twist”; and her beloved “Termo-mee” into a “Thermo-mix.” Essentially I would have to track down assorted fugitive consonants and return them to their rightful place.

Andalusia, you see, is no country for consonants. This is not a consonant-friendly climate. Even my youngest students, who tend to be aces with pronunciation, have a tendency to gnaw and nibble at the consonants of English words over the course of a class. “Ping pong” becomes “peen pone,” “lizard” becomes “leezar,” “snake” becomes “nae.” To understand why this matters, let’s imagine you’re walking through the woods in South Carolina with an Andalusian friend. He sees a copperhead in your path. “NAE!” he shouts. Before you can say, “Sorry—can you repeat?”, it may be too late for you.

Because English depends on its consonants in a way that Andaluglish does not, in the classroom I have to retrieve them before they get too far down the digestive tract. The “s,” in particular. Around here folks eat s’s like peanuts at the circus, and this habit can compromise certain words in English—morally, even. The word horse, for example. Andalusia is horse country. In speaking practice sessions, my students love to talk about a horse. But they don’t like to pronounce an “s.” And if you don’t pronounce the “s” in horse, you, my friend, are no longer in horse country.

Good morning! My name’s Charlie. What’s your name?

My name is Paco.

Nice to meet you Paco. Tell me, Paco, what do you like to do in your free time?

In my free time, I like to ride a hor.

The first time this happened, I was still new in town. I had read that after the death of Franco, with the transition to democracy, Spain had taken a dramatic turn from repressive to permissive. I had seen the bare naked ladies on the public TV. But this, a kid seeking the attentions of an escort in his free time, seemed a little much.

Sorry, Paco, I said. Can you repeat?

And, well, yes, Paco could repeat, and did. Bouncing up and down in his chair to demonstrate, he said, In my free time, I like to ride a hor.

It was just the first of many such misadventures I’ve had over the years. In speaking practice sessions I’ve heard about grandfathers who “keep a hor” in the country to ride on the weekends; cousins who are “training a hor”; younger siblings who are learning to “ride a hor” for the first time.

Living in Jerez doesn’t help. Jerez is known as La Ciudad del Caballo, the City of the Horse, and it is home to the annual Feria del Caballo, or Horse Fair. Come springtime, in speaking practice, my students love to talk about the Horse Fair. But again, they don’t like to pronounce an “s.”

What did you do last weekend, Jaime?

Last weekend I went to the hor fair. At the hor fair I saw a beautiful hor with flower in her hair, and a man riding on top of her.

While I very much like to imagine the face of an official Cambridge speaking examiner in this situation—Dear God! Mediterranean savages!—I have to correct my students before exam day. They want me to correct them. That’s what I’m there for, what I’m getting paid to do. I am there to make sure everybody knows exactly what is being ridden by whom, and where. I am there to make sure it’s clear what Grandpa’s got going on out in the country.

CUIDADO