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October 23, 2006
Build your Spanish vocabulary with President Uribe
If Spanish is your second language, President Uribe's recent rants against the FARC - who may or may not have planted a car bomb at a Bogotá military facility last Thursday, causing the president to break off all contact - included many unfamiliar new vocabulary words. Add these to your deck of flash cards:
- fantoche: "boastful nincompoop" - Yahoo Spanish dictionary. (Context: "What will the terrorist Raúl Reyes say - that fantoche terrorist of international appearances, vedette terrorist of the media, who hides, cowardly, in the Ecuadorian jungle, without Ecuador's consent?")
- vedette: "In the entertainment industry, vedette refers to a star performer of stage or screen." - Wikipedia. (Context: "Frontal struggle against the boastful nincompoop terrorist, vedette of the media, Raúl Reyes!")
- asepsia: state of being uninfected or uncontaminated - Google. (Context: "Soldiers and Police of my Fatherland, high commanders: asepsia within and effectiveness without!")
- mansalveros: I have no idea what this means. (It sounds bad, though.) Googling "mansalvero" and "mansalveros" only yields a handful of links, all of them referring to Colombia, and most of them quoting speeches from President Uribe. (Context: "These bandits should learn to be sincere. Because they are cold-blooded killers and they are liars, they do not look you in the eye, and they are boastful nincompoops and mansalveros.")
Posted by isacson at October 23, 2006 4:12 PM
Comments
"mansalvero" refers to a person who act in "mansalva". It is despective, but well used when talking about FARC, as when they act they usually do "a mansalva".
An example of an act of "mansalva" is an embush. Mansalvero is a despective way to refer to cowards who act from the dark and in not acceptable situations. Another example: A gang of 10 kids taking lunch money for a 5 year old girl in a school ... that's acting "a mansalva".
Fantoche is a person who loves to brag and get attention ... and show-offs, like drug lords ... building houses with gold faucets. I guess "boastful nincompoop" is a good translation.
Asepsia means asepsis, in the medical context of pure, transparent, clean.
Posted by: Patton ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.ciponline.org/colombia/blog/nav-commenters.gif)
at October 23, 2006 5:40 PM
Well, usually the conflict in Colombia is no laughing matter; but I had to smile at Adam's reprise of Uribe's remarks.
Actually, I do agree with el Sr. Presidente as regards the "cobardÃa" (cowardice) of the FARC. I also agree with the critical comments posted by readers of the "El Tiempo" article that Adam linked to (via "rants"). The fundamental problem that Uribe's government needs to address is the "desigualdad" (inequality) of Colombian society. If Uribe were to come up with an agressive social program (Adam says this is "off the table"), then the government could defeat the FARC without resorting to a "total war."
It seems to me that if I could sort of "take over" in Colombia, I could solve the country's problems. Then again, that's what our own President Bush
thought about Iraq.
Somewhat regretfully, I must let Colombians solve their own problems. (Still, if Uribe would listen to me...)
Posted by: richtiger at October 23, 2006 7:49 PM
Hi Adam, all, "mansalveros" could come from the italian "mansalva", word which is composite by the two words "man" (hand) and "salva" (safe). In Italian we use it in expressins like "rubare a mansalva" (to steal with you hand safe), which could mean something like "stealing with the certitude of impunity".
A "masalvero" would be - I guess - someone who perpetrates crimes knowing he'll stay in impunity.
Regards, Doppiafila
Posted by: Doppiafila at November 5, 2006 6:20 AM
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