Tragedy by Hair
I really should be finishing up the French (gulp!) translation that Neds farmed out to me, but I am in the throes of a small tragedy and must share my small pain so I can concentrate on my work.
One of my small but constant pleasures this year has been the presence of a beautiful and charming young man (about 22 or so) in one of my classes. Not only is he a very fine specimen of eye candy, he's also got his excellent manners, studious habits, sense of humor and the wicked streak that breaks out now and again going for him. And this beautiful boy stares at me reverently for three hours a week, so that's nice.
But tonight I was devastated when he showed up to class sporting what looked very much like a mullet. A mullet! I'm hoping that he simply ran a marathon before coming to class and thus had his hair plastered to his head, but I fear it is indeed a mullet. Don't know what you call a mullet in Spanish or Basque, but it is a hair style that unfortunately is quite common around here, and which is why I call it the corte vasco and I suppose why Iñaki calls it the corte euskaldun.
Now, thanks to this tragic mullet, this boy is not so beautiful and I am sad. The fact that this hair style can wreak such damage perfectly illustrates how terribly horrible mullets truly are--and how nobody should ever have one.
22 Whaddya say?:
Yes. Right you are. Didn't even know what a mullet was until I came to Spain. Corte euskaldumb, I'd say.
Is that a picture of Captain Planet? How dare you defame the mighty mullet of Cap'n Planet!?
The mullet is a fish, very common in basque ports, as it lives among and eats shit from the sewage. In basque we call it korkoi or korrokoi. Its back is black and turns greyish to the sides, just like the hairdo.
http://www.fish.gov.au/fishnames/photos/37381017.jpg
"Euskaldumb"? Ned. Please do not go around inventing silly neologisms. You know that most Europeans think Americans are stupid. Don't confirm it.
P.D. Sorry, I did not take into account that you live in Madrid (Spain). I imagine you can go on insulting basques as usual.
Bloody Basques, they are not as we would like them to be!!
I know your heart is broken and you're suffering Wheylona, but let me thank you for your bravery, for denouncing this aesthetic horror, this hairy plague that infests the Basque streets.
Advice to Jon: we should take Ned's note with irony.
We've featured a mullet and your outcry in Sustatu's frontpage today. From Monday on, it will remain permalinked here.
Curious, how Wikipedia defines it: Also in Spain, the mullet is associated with two different ethnic groups: young Gypsies and young separatists from the Basque Country
Regarding the fish, it's called lasuna in Getaria. A seal appeared there last week and happily devoured some mullets.
Hey Ned you are very creative. I got another funny neologism for you. It is a verb: "guernicate"
You might like to use it in a sentence like this (example): They (the basque) should have got guernicated for good!
Jon and Ainhoa, I can assure you that Ned was only commenting on the hairstyle, nothing more. It may have not been the best turn of phrase, but please don't read more into it than is there.
And John, yes I defame the mighty mullet of Cap'n Planet! Even he looks terrible!
Eli and others: So is the hairdo also called korkoi/korrokoi/lasuna in Basque? Or does it have a different name? And what's it called in Spanish?
Luistxo, thanks for your support and sympathy, but don't worry, my suffering is small. :-) (Though I saw the boy just now and alas, he's definitely mulletted.) That seal scored, though.
-"Eli and others: So is the hairdo also called korkoi/korrokoi/la Vsuna in Basque? Or does it have a dif Vferent name? And what's it called in Spanish?"-
"Korkoi" would be a nice name for it,but it is just my proposal. I am not aware of this hair-style having a specific name in Basque. I think we just describe it (aurretik motz, atzetik luze). In German they do the same way. They call it "Vokuhila" or just "Voku" meaning "vorne kurz hinten lang". I don't know about Spanish words for it.
I'm personally against pontificating about things and styles being "ugly" or "cool". I am old enough to have seen many fashions fade away and become aesthetic anathema. As Coco Chanel put it, "What is fashion?, fashion is what will become unfashionable". Who would have told me 20 years ago that people would wear fluffy trousers???
Jon, Ainhoa and anyone else inclined to be offended by my silliness: I sincerely hope that you will be assured that I in absolutely no way, shape or form intended to offend or insult Basque people. I am frankly bewildered at this response. I have nothing but great respect for the Basque people, and even have Basque ancestors myself. It makes me extremely upset and sad that politics and the actions of those who are inclined to see insulting Basques as an easy target means that the rest of us can't even make stupid jokes any more.
Ned,
I was as bewildered as you by the responses to your neologism. I think it spoke more of those that (over)-reacted to what was actually a funny quip.
John - how do you know whether MOST Europeans think Americans are dumb?
Oh, bugger - I think I just over-reacted. Must be my new haircut.
At the risk of throwing more wood on the fire (do we even have that translation in English, or did I just do a Spanglish turn?), my experience is that most Europeans who are inclined to engage in the same sort of generalizations I've apparently been accused of regarding Americans have never actually had any sort of real engagement with any Americans. I cannot tell you the amount of times people in Europe have told me something along the lines of, "Oh you're not like other Americans, you're cool and [insert positive adjective here]. Of course, I don't really know any Americans myself." Like the Basques and other peoples on the portion of the Iberian Peninsula generally regarded as Spain, we are an easy target. I long ago accepted that, and rarely get offended, unless I think the person is speaking from a place of sheer ignorance or unthinkingness. After all, I am inclined to agree wholeheartedly with most, if not all, reasonable criticisms of my country, and am the first to join in a chorus of thought-out and unstereotyped frustration at our actions.
Perhaps something good may come of this, in that we will all, myself more than included, realize that a) thinking before speaking is a good thing and b) other people are not always as bad as we're inclined to think them to be.
OK, I over-reacted. I apologise to you, Ned. I felt angry because your joke was witty (in a very awful sense). I hope your neologism has no success at all. I am fed-up of being insulted every day (as a Basque) in Spanish media (and American, remember the infamous WSJ article). It is not your fault, anyway.
Please don't use such drollery in technical translations, or someone could end up eating soap instead of soup.
Thank you, Jon. I, too, apologize, which I realized earlier this evening I hadn't done properly. Having lived in Spain (even if it was in Madrid) for over 12 years, I should have realized how sensitive an issue this is for the Basque people. Especially regarding a word so linked to your identity as euskaldun. Mea culpa. I'm glad that at least in the blogosphere, this kind of dialogue can exist.
Unfortunately, technical translations leave little room for jokes, silly or otherwise! However, I'm currently enjoying a job translating some kids' fantasy fiction, although perhaps the neologisms are best left out of that, too. ;->
And I apologize for mispelling Jon's name - me of all people!!!!
May be you could think about why you or the north american society have in general a negative construction of the mullet. Here an interesting article from the New York times.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DEED81F3EF933A25750C0A9649C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1
"Jennifer Arnold, a filmmaker, went on a mullet odyssey to shoot ''American Mullet,'' which will be released later this year. She interviewed lesbians, country-western music fans, Mexican day laborers and American Indians to give mullet wearers a voice. ''It's no longer acceptable to make fun of somebody's class status or sexual identity,'' one of her subjects explains. So the mullet has become a scapegoat of political correctness. Yet the mullet is not a modern construction. It may have originated, according to Dr. Castle McLaughlin, an anthropologist at Harvard University, in Native American culture."
I reckon that the general mullet disdain for most (Americans) has much to do with the fact that it's usually associated with rednecks, NASCAR fans and others of a lower socio-economic status, at least in the US. And I imagine I'm not able to separate that out from my aesthetic judgment. I can say, though, that even when the mullet was all the rage in the 80's, I thought it was pretty horrible and unflattering. And for what it's worth, I think much of fashion for the upper classes is pretty horrible and unflattering as well.
Here's a clickable link to the article from Autogaldeketa's comment above.
We've continued the Mullet series in Sustatu with the real Nascar-style American mullet and the Basque traditional mullets that 19th century photographer Eulalia Abaitua found in the Biscayan valley of Arratia (detailed here and here).
If memory serves me, the Brits ain't too positive about mulletation either. Oregon Jon, can you confirm? Wonder what the reason behind that would be.
I think that the bad reputation in the UK was pretty much for the same reasons as in the US - though David Bowie seemed to get away with it in his Ziggy/Aladdin incarnations?
And as we all know, Bowie is god. Hmmmm, I may have to rethink my take on the mullet.
My question to myself now is how I never really tuned into it as a style before coming to Spain. Maybe I had, but just didn't know it had a name. Used to think it waw a Brit-ism.
"I'm personally against pontificating about things and styles being "ugly" or "cool". I am old enough to have seen many fashions fade away and become aesthetic anathema. As Coco Chanel put it, "What is fashion?, fashion is what will become unfashionable". Who would have told me 20 years ago that people would wear fluffy trousers???"
Eli for president.
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