¿Embarazada?

Why is the word for pregnant in Spanish so much like the English for embarrassed? I always wondered. Schoolboyish, I know.

Embarazar was first recorded in Spanish in 1460. The root of the word is in the meaning to bar, block, impede, hinder. I couldn't think how that connects with being pregnant. What is impeded? - the womb. Or, more likely, it could derive from sex being barred during pregnancy in those days. The Church proclaimed: 'Sex is forbidden when a woman is menstruating, pregnant, nursing, during lent,...' So, when pregnant, she was 'barred'.

If the above derivation is correct, then the Spanish usage of the word is understandable. English adopted the word via the French embarrasser. It was not used to mean 'feeling ashamed or awkward' until the 1800s, and this meaning likely developed from the feelings (some would say, particularly English feelings) associated with being impeded or held back.


A Spanish word trail:

embarazar
1. v.tr. Impedir, estorbar, retardar algo - block, hold back
2. v.tr. Dejar encinta a una mujer - make pregnant

encinta
adj. Dicho de una mujer - preñada, pregnant

preñada
adj. Dicho de una mujer, o de una hembra de cualquier especie que ha concebido y tiene el feto o la criatura en el vientre (baby in the belly).

concebir
1. v.tr. to conceive, to understand
2. v.intr. to become pregnant, conceive (mujer)


The danger of mistaking embarazada for embarrassed makes it a 'false friend' (not a false cognate; they are cognates = they share the same root).

For those so tempted, you should know:
When an obscene meaning is produced in making a pun on a false friend, it is called cacemphaton (κακεμφάτον), Greek for 'bad-looking'. The prime pun on embarrass/embarazar seems to be this (Google returned 825 of these):

When Parker Pen marketed a ballpoint pen in Mexico, its ads were supposed to say "It won't leak in your pocket and embarrass you." However, the company mistakenly thought the Spanish word "embarazar" meant embarrass. Instead the ads said: "It won't leak in your pocket and make you pregnant."

Yet, be cautious still, for embarazoso means exactly the same as 'embarrassing'.

Image: Font of Life © 2006 S Carlos

El final de la diversidad cultural.

You don't see this in the UK except, and if you're lucky, in a large city bookshop; but it's sold all over Spain. It's a magazine produced in English-Spanish, English-French and English-Italian combinations; and a very pleasant way to pick up some vocabulary. This is the COLORS site, but you only get a flavour there (though you can subscribe).

It's bilingual throughout with powerful writing, strong design and fantastic pictures. In this issue dedicated to Travel, for instance, there's a piece on the effects of travel on cultural diversity:

"See the world while it lasts. Technology is infectious. Every time an antenna is raised in a remote village, another local culture becomes extinct. No society is equipped to withstand the onslaught. Every satellite launched, every cable laid, and the death of every elder, hastens the end of cultural diversity. If you are 25, it will disappear during your lifetime. Forget about stopping it; you can't. Instead savor every chance you get to absorb a passing world, to experience as much as you can before it fades into a big version of anyplace."

"Hay que ver el mundo antes de que desaparezca del mapa. La tecnología es contagiosa. Cada nueva antena que se levanta en una aldea remota significa el final de una cultura. Ninguna sociedad tiene los medios para defenderse. Cada vez que se pone en órbita un satélite, cada vez que se entierra un cable de televisíon, cada vez que muere un anciano, se acerca el final de la diversidad cultural. Si hoy tienes 25 años desaparecerá antes de que te mueras. Ni si te ocurra tratar de impedirlo: es imposible. Lo mejor es aprovechar todas las posibilidades que se presenten de saborear el mundo que se desvanece, ver y aprender todo lo que puedas antes de que el mundo se convierta en un lugar donde todos y todo se parece."

(If you're thinking that gives you plenty of time -
the issue quoted was published in 1995.)

COLORS magazine spread showing used Coke cans from America, Poland, Zimbabwe, Australia, Japan, Finland, Nepal.

So they recommend:

"Go now. Go for the people, not for the weather. Go to learn. Pass along to your friends and later, your kids, the things you learned, wherever you went. Use the technology you have to record what you find. Take pictures, tape music and stories, make videos. And leave nothing behind. When you go back home, take things away in your head, not in your suitcase.

If you want a souvenir, bring back a used can of Coke."

"Viaja, pero que sea la gente, y no el clima del lugar, el objetivo de tu viaje. Viaja y aprende. Así podrás enseñar a tus amigos y, después, a tus hijos todo lo que has aprendido en tus viajes. Aprovecha la tecnología para grabar cuanto encuentres. Saca fotos, graba música e historias y graba videos. No dejes nada olvidado: a volver a tu país, llévatelo todo en la cabeza, no en la maleta.

Si quieres un souvenir, llévate una lata vacía de Coca Cola."

Los mios



Dalí's thoughts:
"Thanks to IBM machines, social classes are going to disappear, and the whole universe will be cuckolded."
From Alain Bosquet's Conversations with Dali (1969).