Thursday, November 29, 2007

Tire Todo a la Mierda

This excellent point by Mark Athitakis on the subject of British writer Tom Hodgkinson's new book, The Freedom Manifesto, and my comment on it, bringing out a Cubanism on the subject, got me to think about something peculiar that I notice whenever I listen to Spanish language radio.

The last time that I was in Miami, I was listening to the news in Spanish while I drove around the area, and a Cuban accented voice detailed the usual grim news that generally dominate any newscast.

The other news anchor on the show then commented how bad the news usually are, and how some people get stressed over them. His partner then offered a solution to remove the stress.

"Tire todo a la mierda," he said.

This is a tough Cubanism to translate. "Tire" is to throw, and "todo" is everything, and "mierda" is shit.

But what it means is more like "Consider (or treat) everything as you would shit." Or more succinctly: "Fuck it."

But that's not my issue or point - as usual, I digress.

Anyone on an English-speaking radio station can be fined - or definitely bleeped - for saying the word "shit" (among others) on the air.

So, and I know that this happens all the time in Spanish speaking stations, are non-English radio stations getting away with cursing on the air?

Or does the FCC have a separate army of linguists listening to Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, Farsi, Italian, Russian, Hebrew, Chinese, etc. trying to find on air cursing?

Or after considering the cost of doing this, has the FCC HMFIC decided to "tirar todo a la mierda"?

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