Beijar-se com alguém

Não sei se é um uso esporádico ou acidental (creio que não), mas hoje ouvi num filme brasileiro E se fosse você, estrelando Tony Ramos e Glória Pires, cujos personagens, devido a um alinhamento entre a Terra e Marte, passam a ocupar o corpo do outro, uma frase que me chamou a atenção, fulano estava se beijando com beltrano, em vez do comuníssimo fulano estava beijando beltrano. Chamaram-me a atenção tanto o pronome se, que tem aí uma função reflexiva, já que o beijo "vai e volta", quanto a preposição com, que indica quase sempre companhia, aí a referir-se a duas bocas que se tocam. Talvez tenha sido feita alguma associação com casar(-se) com alguém ou o brasileirismo, ainda muitas vezes condenado nos livros de gramática no capítulo de regência verbal, namorar com alguém. O que mais me espanta é que tal frase é produto de alguém que a inventou e que a escreveu, portanto não se trata de um simples deslize. O mister do autor, quando se trata de diálogos, é captar a linguagem coloquial, mas tenho minhas dúvidas se tal construção, para mim tão estranha, se usa no colóquio normal.

As Galápagos

Hoje lendo uma reportagem sobre uma tartaruga gigante solitária nas ilhas Galápagos, constantemente me deparei com a construção as Galápagos, que deve ter aparecido umas dez vezes. Todas as vezes que tinha ouvido referirem-se a esse arquipélago, famoso pelas investigações de Charles Darwin, naturalista inglês autor de A origem das espécies, sempre ouvia as ilhas Galápagos, razão pela qual me estranhou ver o apelativo desprovido da sua especificação geológica. O que me impressionou é a (falta de) concordância entre as, artigo definido plural, e Galápagos, palavra masculina plural, que provém do vocábulo espanhol galápago, cágado. Apesar do meu estranhamento inicial, agora acho que me convenci de que essa é a melhor concordância, por estar subentendida a palavra ilhas. Os Galápagos, pensando bem, só se poderia referir aos animais, mais não nessa mescla de português e espanhol.

Castle or lock?

Why is it that many languages have the same word for two totally different concepts, castle and lock? German has Schloss, Dutch, slot, Polish, zamek and Czech, zámek. Russian is interesting in this respect. If you accent it on the first syllable, замок means castle. If you accent the second, замок means lock.

French-borrowed words in Portuguese and Spanish

Traditional we have kept the same French gender (masculine - le, feminine - la) in words that Portuguese has borrowed from that tongue and, if the word is masculine, we change the final French e to o and if the word is feminine, we change it to a. But recently it has been a trend to keep the same ending in Brazilian Portuguese (at least), which means keeping the French e with the original gender. We have thus words such as a cabine (from la cabine), much more common than the more Portuguese a cabina and a equipe. It is interesting to note, however, that this word has followed its traditional path in Portugal, where it is a equipa. It should be the same in Brazil, but for some reason, it is not. It seems as though traditions are being more and more ignored nowadays, as can be seen in suinocultura. I wonder if that's something positive or negative.

On another note, Spanish has followed a weird path for l'équipe (feminine) and transformed it into el equipo. It should have become la equipa. I guess fewer and fewer people nowadays have a smattering of French and just assign whatever gender they please to new words taken from French or associate them with similar concepts and give them the same gender. That could be an explanation.

Japanese Aorist?

I am beginning to think that Japanese has an Aorist-like tense in addition to the much-talked-about unmarked form vs. perfect. Compare the following pair.

I. 猫は/が、川を渡る。

1. neko-wa/ga kawa-o wataru.
2. cat-TOPIC/NOM river-ACC cross
   

II. 猫、川を渡る。

1. neko kawa-o wataru
2. cat river-ACC cross
   

Two sentences look the same but the former means, "The/A cat crosses the/a river" and the latter, "The/A cat crossed the/a river." The simple lack of postposition for the subject noun in the latter describes the action of the sentence as an objective event that happened in the past with little relationship to the present. This construction is often employed in newspaper titles. I would not consider it is far-fetched to see a phenomenon quite similar to what is called aorist in Indo-European syntax.

In fact, the two wataru's manifest morphological difference as below;
I' OK neko-wa/ga kawa-o wataru-yo.
II' * neko kawa-o wataru-yo.
where -yo adds to a sentence a spin to make the hearer take heed for a piece of new information. The whole sentence I' translates into, "Hey look, a cat crosses the river."

The aorist wataru cannot take a modality particle.

suinocultor

Em um artigo da Wikipédia em português sobre picanha, lê-se "Recentemente, o aumento da variedade de cortes de carnes suínas originado de ações promovidas pelos suinucultures, fez surgir um novo corte para os admiradores deste tipo de carne, que recebeu o nome de picanha suína". Suinucultures? pergunto-vos (nem vou falar daquela vírgula indevida depois de "suinucultores"). Como é possível que uma palavra composta por aglutinação tenha um substantivo/adjetivo terminado em u no primeiro elemento que a compõe? Isso vai contra a tradição em língua portuguesa. Note-se que as palavras terminadas em cultor são todas de feição erudita cujo primeiro elemento remete imediatamente ao termo latino que delimita o sentido do composto. É por isso que temos apicultor para quem cuida de abelhas (apis em latim, abelha), piscicultor para quem trabalha com peixes (piscis em latim, peixe), agricultor para quem lida com a terra (ager, agris em latim, terra). Tanto Google com 14 600 ocorrências quanto meu dicionário Aurélio recolhem suinocultor (mas este não diz nada em relação a suinucultor). Mas será que o dicionário fez bem em recolher tal termo? Volta-se à questão se um dicionário deve simplesmente registrar um termo usado pelo povo ou se deve ditar lei. Na minha opinião, é função do dicionário registrar as palavras, pois alguém que não conhece determinado vocábulo recorre a ele em hora de dúvida, mas também não haveria mal nenhum se houvesse notas aconselhando ou desaconselhando o uso de determinada palavra, pois assim a pessoa interessada no uso culto da língua a incorporaria ou a rechaçaria. Voltando à vaca fria, já que estamos falando de animais, seguindo o exemplo de piscicultor, apicultor, agricultor e de tantos outros termos que terminam no genitivo latino menos o s, deveria ter-se criado suicultor em português, de sus (porco, suíno) em latim, genitivo suis. Mas é claro que não se há de esperar rudimentos de latim com alguém que está preocupado com tudo, menos com a nossa língua-mãe.

To be and to eat

Some languages must have been up to something when they created similar words for to eat and to be. German essen (to eat) goes isst (old spelling: ißt) in third person singular, which is a homophone with ist (to be), also third person singular. Russian есть (is) , pronounced est', has the same form as the verb to eat, есть. In Slovak, je is the third person singular both of the verb jesť (to eat) and byť (to be). Jest (is) in Polish is similar to Czech jíst (to eat). Latin es means both (thou) eatest and (thou) art, the difference being that thou art has a short e and thou eatest a long e.

All this talk reminds me of that old adage: edo ut vivam, non vivo ut edam ("I eat to live, I don't live to eat").

O bebê quer trocar

Today while I was sitting in a bakery enjoying a sandwich and a drink, somebody asked why the baby was crying, to which the mother replied, "O bebê quer trocar." (The baby wants changing.). This sentence at first surprised me, because the mother used the verb trocar intransitively in a sense that does not belong to it, at least not according to what my ear and my dictionary tell me. Trocar (to change) can be used transitively (you change something), with the preposition de or pronominally meaning to get changed/to change (clothes). She ascribed to that infinitive a passive meaning is found in a few languages whose infinitives can be easily converted to the passive, as is the case in Latin and the Scandinavian languages. Latin amare means to love, but amari means to be loved. Swedish älska and Danish elske mean to love, but Swedish älskas and Danish elskes mean to be loved. These three languages do not use an auxiliary and a past participle as most languages do (and as English does) to make the passive voice, they simply change the infinitive. A similar phenomenon can be seen in English in the translation of the title of this post: The baby wants changing (or in some dialects: changed). Here I used the gerund form, also known as the -ing form, to mean The baby wants to be/get changed. If I were to give the sentence an active meaning, I would have said The baby wants to change, which doesn't make sense in English, by the way, but that's what that mother said in Portuguese. Another language that has a verb in the past participle, just like English wants changed, is Romanian, where it is possible to say Bebeul trebuie schimbat (The baby needs changed) as well as Bebeul trebuie să fie schimbat (The baby needs to be changed).

Cele multe semnificaţii ale "cravo"

Polisemie înseamnă folosirea unui termen care are o semnificaţie determinată de context. Azi când îmi făceam plimbarea, m-am dat seama de cele varie sensuri pe care le a substantivul portughez cravo. Cravo poate să însemne:

1.Clavecin
Meu filho aprendeu a tocar cravo. - Fiul meu a învăţat să cânte la clavecin.

2.Cuişoare
Não gosto de cravo na comida. - Nu-mi place cuişoarea în hrană.

3.Cui
Prenderam Jesus com um cravo à cruz. - Îl fixară pe Isus cu un cui la cruce.

4.Acnee
Aquele menino tem muitos cravos no rosto. - Acel băiat are multe acnei la chip.

5.Garoafă
Ele deu cravos à esposa. - El i-a dat garoafe ale soţiei.

Mă bucur că există polisemie. Fără ea am trebui să învăţăm şi folosim multe cuvinte. Polisemia contribuie la oarece economie în limbă, dar ea poate să l-inducă pe învăţătorul unei limbii străine în eroare. Îmi amintesc de un elev al unei colege mele care scrisese în compunerea lui că îi place să ia o mânecă la mic dejun, pentru că cuvântul portughez manga înseamnă atât mango cât şi mânecă. Mânecă a fost probabil prima traducere pe care a găsit-o în dicţionar şi a hotărât s-o folosească fără multă reflectare.

Imbróglio, googlar

Como é possível que lexicógrafos tenham aceitado a grafia imbróglio (do italiano imbroglio) se o grupo gl é pronunciado g + l, ao contrário do italiano, que muitas vezes o pronúncia como uma consoante palatal? Não faz sentido nenhum, muito menos acentuar esta palavra. O raciocínio que tiveram é : bom, já que se trata de palavra paroxítona terminada em ditongo, acento nela! Mas e o gl? Esse gl nos obrigaria a pronunciá-la im-bró-glio, mas ninguém o faz.

Outra palavra que vai dar pano para a manga é googlar. Que verbo horrível! Se dependesse de mim, nunca entraria na língua. Mas se entrar, melhor que o faça com uma roupagem portuguesa: guglar ou gugolar.

O babuíno matou o leopardo

Yesterday a student and I had a discussion in Portuguese about baboons and leopards (very productive for a German class!) and he said that when baboons are in groups, they are bold enough to go after their natural predators and kick their asses, but that was not the case with two youths of the baboon and the leopard family he saw in a Discovery documentary. He said the young leopard saw a baboon, charged against it and due to all the stress of the fight, the baboon, who was pregnant, delivered a beautiful baby. At that point (I don't know if I was paying much attention or just spaced out) I said Mas quem matou a quem? (Who killed whom?) since he had said O babuíno matou o leopardo (The baboon killed the leopard or The leopard killed the baboon). The problem with that sentence is, since Portuguese is a language with a very free word order, which is normally subject (S) + verb (V) + object (O), but can also be SOV, VSO and VOS, among other possibilities, I was left clueless who was the killer and who was the killee. That especially happens when you have two nouns in the same number (in this case singular). What could my student have done to avoid that ambiguity (I'm sure the ambiguity was only in my mind, not in his)? He could have used the preposition a, normally translated as to, before the direct object and there would be no chance for misunderstandings: O babuíno matou ao leopardo (The baboon killed the leopard), Ao babuíno matou o leopardo (The leopard killed the baboon). This problem wouldn't have arisen if the conversation had taken place in, let's say, Spanish, since the language requires the direct object to be followed by the same preposition a in that case, not so in Portuguese, which may or may not use it. In Spanish you'd have El babuino mató al leopardo. Al leopardo mató el babuino.

This is the kind of misunderstandings that you may sometimes have in a language that doesn't have declensions and allows for a free word order, since cases tell you exactly who did what to whom. In Czech, Polish, Russian and German, for instance, languages that have cases, you have Pavián zabil leoparda. Pawian zabił lamparta. Бабуин убил леопарда. Der Pavian tötete den Leoparden, respectively. You could play around with these sentences and say/write Leoparda zabil pavian. Lamparta zabił pawian. Леопарда убил бабуин. Den Leoparden tötete der Pavian and you'd still have the baboon as the predator and the leopard, the prey, at least in the realm of language.

Just to finish my story, it turns out that the leopard was overcome by an irresistible motherly love and took care of the baby baboon in the absence of his or her (just to be PC) mother, who had been slaughtered mercilessly by the feline.

Prize or price?

The inattentive observer could argue that it was a Spanish or a Scandinavian speaker who brought about all the confusion found in many languages when it comes to describing prices and prizes, since the aforementioned speakers have a hard time distinguishing a voiced from a voiceless s and tend to pronounce the latter to the detriment of the former. Many languages, related and not related, have only one word to refer to what is known in Portuguese as prêmio and preço, in Spanish as premio and precio, in Italian as premio and prezzo, in Polish as nagroda and cena, in Russian as приз (priz) and цена (tsena). Dutch, for example, has prijs, German Preis, Czech cena and French prix. I don't know how they don't get muddled up sometimes.

"duzir"

A língua portuguesa e todas as outras línguas romances contam com um sem-fim de derivados do verbo latino ducere, conduzir, reduzir, introduzir, produzir, traduzir, etc., mas perdeu-se de vista o étimo, o próprio verbo ducere, que, comparado com as outras formas que surgiram, teria dado duzir. Ducere é o que se encontra em italiano com o substantivo duce, comandante, levado a público principalmente com a entrada de Mussolini no poder. Também se encontra no verbo romeno a se duce, ir, e em catalão dur, levar. Onde foi parar o nosso duzir?

Inóspito

A palavra inóspito, com suas variações em qualquer língua novilatina, refere-se sempre a ambientes que proporcionam o mínimo ou a escassez de recursos para a sobrevivência, seja de espécie vegetal seja animal. Entretanto, esta pessoa que vos escreve faz uso desta palavra de forma bastante própria: acrescenta-lhe uma acepção que não lhe pertence, a de antipático, com quem não se pode entabular uma conversação. Eis a palavra sendo usada no meu idioleto: Fulano é uma das pessoas mais inóspitas que já conheci. Olha a todos com desdém e responde mal a todo o mundo. É claro que não se trata de uso padrão dessa palavra, como já apontei, mas de uma nova utilização toda minha a que dou vazão às vezes. Dependendo da situação, deixo bem claro ao meu ouvinte que é uma das minhas idiossincrasias e a resposta que obtenho pode ser tanto positiva (a maioria das vezes) ou neutra. Negativa ainda não encontrei nenhuma.

A Semantic Approach to wa/ga Distinction

The esoteric distinction between Japanese postpositions -wa and -ga has caused so much rancour all around the galaxy that there exist several planets where the inhabitants pick up sundry exegeses on this topic from the street and throw them at each other in greeting. What we will say below covers a small semantic difference of the two particles. It is hoped that this is going to be a short essay lest it should cause serious damage when used as a projectile by an enraged reader.

We begin by comparing how -wa and -ga have different implications for a statement that English expresses with; "R2-D2 sang Rigoletto."

1. R2-D2はリゴレットを歌った。

• R2-D2-wa rigoretto-o utatta.
• R2-D2-wa Rigoletto-Accusative singPast
  
• Rigoletto is likely to be the only piece that the robot sang.
  

2. R2-D2がリゴレットを歌った。

• R2-D2-ga rigoretto-o utatta.
• R2-D2-ga Rigoletto-Accusative singPast
• The robot is likely to
  have been the only performer who sang Rigoletto.
  

Using logic symbols, we tentatively understand the two sentences as conveying the following basic scheme;

[wa]
S ⊂ P (the subject, S, is part of the set that meets the predicate, P)

[ga]
S ⊃ P (the subject, S, includes as its component the set that meets the predicate, P)


This explanation for wa seems justifiable but ga poses a problem, if we consider the following pair.

3. OK自然数は整数である（ℕ ⊂ ℤ）。

• šizensū-wa sēsū dearu.
• Natural number-wa integer Copula.
• Natural numbers are integers.
  

4. *整数が自然数である（ℤ ⊃ ℕ）。

• *sēsū-ga šizensū dearu.

The sentence is well-formed but hard to interpret. A forced interpretation is, "Integers are natural numbers." This does not convey the mathematical relationship between integers and natural numbers, ℤ ⊃ ℕ. The ga interpretation needs renovating with another method of analysis.

We now consider a set of opera performances in order to analyse the semantic implications of -wa and -ga. The table below lists opera performances at Carnegie Hall in the summer of 2006.

Performance at Carnegie Hall

PERFORMER	PERFORM_DATE	ITEM
Cheshire Cat	2006/07/01	Othelo
Moo	2006/07/03	The Pirates of Pensance
Tom	2006/08/12	Lohengrin
Cheshire Cat	2006/08/23	Lohengrin
Babar	2006/08/23	Mikado
R2-D2	2006/09/01	Rigoletto
Cheshire Cat	2006/09/03	Othelo

Any useful list of such performances should tell vital information such as performer, date and the performed musical pieces. The table captures them in the three columns, for which we now postulate an important relationship; that each column has values independent of those in other columns. The name of a performer poses no constraints on the date he can perform or the piece he can sing, for example.

Looking at performances on 07/01 and 09/03, we realise that Cheshire Cat was the only performer who sang Othelo during this season. Also, the record for 09/01 shows that R2-D2 was the only one to sing Rigoletto. Without contradicting other performance records, wa/ga postpositions can be used to express these facts.

5. チェシャ猫がオテロを歌った。

• Češa Neko-ga otero-o utatta.
• It was Cheshire Cat that sang Othelo.
  

6. R2-D2はリゴレットを歌った。

• R2-D2-wa rigoretto-o utatta.
• R2-D2 sang Rigoletto only.
  

Sentences 5 and 6 are equivalent to the following statements about the table PERFORMANCE
(where p is an instance of performance);

7. ∃p (performer = Cheshire Cat, item = Othelo)
AND ∄ p (performer ≠ Cheshire Cat, item = Othelo)

The first clause states that there is indeed a record of Cheshire Cat singing Othelo at the prestigious venue, whereas the second one says there was no other performer who sang Othelo. Note that this formulation is irrelevant of other performances of the grinning feline. In fact Cheshire Cat sang Lohengrin too. This, however, does not prohibit ga-statement from use here.

8. ∃p (performer = R2-D2, item = Rigoletto)
AND ∄ p (performer = R2-D2, item ≠ Rigoletto)
(optionally) AND ∄ p (performer ≠ R2-D2, item = Rigoletto)

The first clause for wa-statement has the same effect as that for ga-statement. Then second clause reads that there exists no record such that, while having performer = R2-D2, item is not Rigoletto. The third one is equivalent to the second for 7.


We might be able to build a similar table for the sentences about natural numbers and integers (3, 4). A table like below, however, violates the column independence condition being postulated above. If a record has natural_no = Y, then always int = Y. Statements 7 and 8, having foundation on this postulate for the table, cannot be applied where the postulate does not stand.

Table of Numbers

NO	NATURAL_NO	INT
1	Y	Y
2	Y	Y
-3	N	Y

The ga-statement about natural numbers and integers (4), therefore, cannot be accorded with a proper interpretation. Sentence 3 is still interpreted properly since for a wa-statement, interpretation at table level is not necessary. The relationship between the wa-subject and the predicate is that of set theory (S ⊂ P).

The following is the formal definition of a ga-statement.

For a group of records R, with mutually independent elements from e₁ to e_n,
R = (e₁, e₂, e₃, e₄, ...., e_n)

if a ga-statement exists between two of the elements,
e₁-ga e₂ da.

then the relationship between the elements is:
∃r (e₁ = S, e₂ = P)
AND ∄ r (e₁ ≠ S, e₂ = P)
where S is the subject and P the predicate, of a ga-statement.

This is the logical structure of the ga-statement, often called exhaustive ga.


We have yet to establish a logical representation of the implications of wa-statement outside the table framework.

9. 70点は取った。

• nanajutten-wa totta.
  
• seventyPoints-wa takePast.
  
• I got around seventy points.

In this sentence, -wa substitutes the accusative marker and roughly corresponds to the English "around." If a student is talking about how many points she thinks she got in the last ungraded exam, sentence 9 means 70 is the student's assessment of what she has scored. If the results are out and it turns out the student is graded 67 points, her assessment would have been quite a valid one. The same goes for 76, 71, 68 etc. since these figures are close enough to the mark. An overly high or low grade such as 53 and 99 means that her wa-statement did not match the reality.

Even if individuals may differ in assessing what is different enough from the subject, we can safely assume that a wa-statement entails negative relationships between subjects not being
"similar" to the wa-clause and the predicate. A wa-statement contrasts the subject with other objects belonging to the same class. For the example above, points that are not close to 70 cannot be interpreted as the points scored by the student. If we use Sim(S) as a notation for subjects "similar to S," we get an implication;
10. ¬Sim(S) → ¬P
for a wa-statement.

The primary semantics of a wa-statement, S ⊂ P, can be modified as below in the light of similar subjects:
Sim(S) ⊂ P (S and others similar to S are included in P).

This entails,
11. Sim(S) → P
where
S ∼ Sim(S) ∼ ∞ (∞ ≠ ¬S)
default: Sim(S) = ∞

Due to the subjective nature of Sim(S), we allow it to range from S itself to whatever the speaker pleases, unless it is ¬S. The default value Sim(S) = ∞ is postulated in order to minimise the ¬P conclusion unless context is given to justify shrinking the range of Sim(S).

When Sim(S) is S, 11 and the inverse of 10 are;
S → P
P → S,

This means;
12. S ↔ P
that P and S are equivalents. This has been, in fact, the conclusion of the full-fledged version of statement 8.


The consequence of 11 and 12 is that, when context renders to -wa utmost power of contrasting, the postposition is used for a definite object. If an object in an utterance is equivalent to another, then the object is uniquely identifiable among other objects of the same class; thus the object becomes definite. Even if the opposition definite vs. indefinite plays little role in Japanese syntax,
-wa can be a sort of definite marker by virtue of contrasting. In fact, contrastive function is the primary role of this postposition (contrastive wa).

13. 年とった猫が宿屋に住んでいた。猫は鼠捕りが上手かった。

• toshitotta neko-ga yadoya-ni sundeita. neko-wa nezumitori-ga umakatta.
  
• old cat-ga inn-Locative livePerfectProgressive. cat-wa catchingMice-ga goodAtPast.
  
• An old cat lived in an inn. The cat was good at catching mice.

After an old cat living in an inn has been introduced in the discourse, there is little possibility that another cat is discussed in the second sentence. The "neko" in the second sentence is a definite object, thereby requiring -wa.

Also of note here is that "an old cat" is introduced by -ga. Replacing it with -wa causes interpretive dissonance. This may be accounted for by the different levels that -wa and -ga operate. On one hand, -ga, working on table level, requires that such an object indeed exists that meets the criterion denoted by the predicate (∃r (e₁ = S, e₂ = P)). On the other hand, -wa indicates relationships between propositions, without specifying the truth value of any of them. First, -ga introduces the existence of a cat living in an inn. Then, -wa elaborates on the object at
categorical level.


Conclusion
This has been an attempt at analysing exhaustive ga and contrastive wa in the light of semantics. We have found that the two postpositions work at different semantic levels and that some semantic implications are reflected in syntax. Other syntactic characteristics of wa and ga may be also worthy of semantic examination.

Latin v - French g

Today I was really proud of my student Mirela Bertin Carnietto (she said it's okay to disclose her name here) when she exclaimed she had found a way to remember how to say snow and light in French (neige and léger). She said all you had to do is change Portuguese v for French g: neve - neige, leve - léger. I looked at her and announced: "You're totally right, I'd never thought about that". That thinking took me to Latin, which has nix, nivis for snow and levis, levis for light, which took me to Latin cavea, which became cage in French (and was taken by English with the same meaning). Voilà! I'm glad I'm instilling some linguistic thoughts in some of my students.

Telón de Acero

La denominación Telón de Acero, acuñada por el ministro de propaganda nazi Joseph Goebbels para referirse a la línea demarcatoria entre los países europeos del bloque socialista, liderados por Unión Soviética, y los de orientación capitalista, por Estados Unidos, que entró en circulación en el fin de la Segunda Guerra Mundial y permaneció en uso hasta la caída del Muro del Berlín, me parece una mala traducción del original alemán (der Eiserne Vorhang), que significa Cortina de Hierro, otro nombre que se le da en español. En el original alemán y en ninguna otra lengua (salvo en el catalán Teló d'Acer, que habrá surgido por influencia castellana) está presente el vocablo acero, Stahl en en idioma de Goethe. Para que el español se alinease con las otras lenguas europeas en este punto, sería necesario abondonar el término Telón de Acero y dar preferencia solamente a Cortina de Hierro.

Sólo por curiosidad, veamos cuántas ocurrencias hay en Google para Telón de Acero y Cortina de Hierro:
Personalizados Resultados 1 - 10 de aproximadamente 83.000 para "Telón de Acero" (0,36 segundos)
Resultados 1 - 10 de aproximadamente 54.900 para "Cortina de Hierro" (0,23 segundos)

Telón de Acero sigue en el liderazgo, pero Cortina de Hierro no se encuentra en un margen de diferencia tan significativo.

Leech

A leech, besides a worm, can also sometimes refer to a doctor. The term leech comes from the time when doctors believed leeches could be used to cure a considerable number of diseases. They would apply the leeches to the patient's skin and the blood that the vermin would suck out was regarded as bad, meaning that the person's ailment had gone away. What has always intrigued me is that the word leech bears a striking resemblance to Czech lék and Polish lek "medicine (the one the doctor prescribes)". They ought to be related!

Escuálido

Hace unas semanas un amigo mío usó la palabra escuálido en una acepció que me extrañó un poco. Se lo señalé y, como él no estaba seguro si había usado bien la palabra, me sugirió que la buscara en el diccionario y averiguara el significado que le es propio. Más tarde, en cuanto llegué a casa, corrí al diccionario y constaté algo que ya sabía, que escuálido significa sucio, inmundo, pero la segunda acepción que aparecía era aquella de flaco, macilento, muy próxima al significado que mi amigo pareció darle, de fino o delgado. Entonces me asaltó la curiosidad de saber si escuálido significaba exactamente lo mismo en otras lenguas neolatinas (preciso que nuestra conversación fue en portugués), y esto es lo que encontré:

Español -

escuálido, da.
	(Del lat. squalĭdus).
	1. adj. Flaco, macilento.
	2. adj. Sucio, asqueroso. www.rae.es

Coincide, por lo tanto, con las acepciones de la palabra en portugués.

Italiano -

e agg.
1 spoglio di ogni grazia e ornamento; misero: un ambiente squallido
2 triste e desolato: condurre una vita squallida | privo di vivacità; stentato: abbozzò uno squallido sorriso
3 moralmente deprimente; abietto: una vicenda, una persona squallida
4 (lett.) pallido, smunto, emaciato: con la squallida prole e con la nuda / consorte a lato (PARINI) | incolto, ispido: squallida avea la barba, orrido il crine (CARO)

www.garzantilinguistica.it

Las acepciones 1 y 2 no coinciden con aquellas en portugués y español, por lo que se ve que en italiano ha habido una extensión semántica, que no parece haber sucedido en las lengus ibéricas, por lo menos se ve que esa extensión no está registrada en el diccionario. Sería menester hacer una investigación lingüística para saber si a algún "lusófono" o hispanohablante se le ha ocurrido hacer uso de ese vocablo de la manera como se lo podría usar en italiano.

Tempo

I don't like the idea of having only one word to refer both to time and weather. To me these are totally discrete concepts that should have their own word, I don't care what language you're talking about. Portuguese and Italian have tempo, Latin tempus, Spanish tiempo, French and Catalan temps and Romanian is the only lucky Romance language to have two words: timp (time) and vreme (weather). Vreme is clearly a word of Slavic language, cf. Russian время, which, oddly enough, means time. Macedonian време can mean both. Is that maybe where Romanians got their word?