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Diego and Uncle Valentin on “The No Asshole Rule” in Spanish

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I wrote a post last week asking readers for ideas about what to call The No Asshole Rule in Spanish.  I offered free books (in Spanish and English) to the first 5 people who made suggestions, and I was delighted with the range and thought that people devoted to the question (including some suggestions for the French version, which will be coming out).  The last suggestion I received was especially amazing. It came from Diego at Metacool, but resulted from a long conversation among Diego, Diego’s father, and Diego’s uncle Valentin Sama.   Valentin Sama is a professor in Madrid and he runs a very cool web photography magazine called DSLR — check it out.  The comment is so good that and complex that it is well worth repeating as a post for those of you who did not dig into the comments:

Bob,

I think you should be able to find a Spanish version of the title,
but I think you have a challenge in terms of getting the idiomatic fit.
I asked a Spanish friend of mine (my uncle), and he said the following:

"Desde luego, absolutamente, para España, no sirve lo de "pendejo".

Si no se quiere utilizar gilipollas, podría usarse la palabra
tradicional de "idiota" o "imbécil".

Curiosamentes, estás palabras, que al igual que gilipollas son ahora
insultos, vienen de una degradación del uso de la palabra médica
"idiocia", de donde se deriva "idiota".

Ahora me entra la duda añadida de si "Rule" se emplea no como "regla" o
"norma", sino como "ruling" o sea, del hecho de "gobernar", "dominar"?

El autor del libro debe asumir, pienso, distintos títulos para américa
latina y para España. En España no sirve "pendejo" que es más bien el
aficionado a irse de juerga, pero sirve "idiota", "estúpido", "imbécil",
y desde luego, si se es más valiente, "gilipollas".
Desde luego, "polla" viene de "cock", y en ocasiones, cuando no se
quiere decir "gilipollas" se tiene a decir "gilipuertas", pero eso ya es
muy, muy idiomático.


He leido algunos de los ejemplos, y lo que definen ahí como asshole, más
que un gilipollas es un "hijo de puta", "son of a bitch", pero eso ya es
muy fuerte."

So, something like "pendejo" won’t work in Spain, but might work for
Latin America. He suggested "gilipollas" as the term in lieu of
asshole, but it’s stronger, maybe too strong. If you can localize (and
there’s a strong argument for that move), you could put pendejo for the
Americas and gilipollas for Europe.

Are you open to changing the cover art? A great suggestion from a
wise person I know (of Cuban and Venezuelan extraction) would be to put
"gilipollas" or whatever the word is on the cover with the
international "no" symbol (as in Ghostbusters) over it.


Comments

One response to “Diego and Uncle Valentin on “The No Asshole Rule” in Spanish”

  1. jonkysit Avatar
    jonkysit

    I will not get into what the word should be in American countries, but certainly in Spain there is no option other than “gilipollas”. I guess “gilipuertas” would do, but it would be such a shame to waste the opportunity to say “gilipollas”. As for the use of “pendejo” in Spain, Diego’s uncle is just right in pointing that it means nothing along the lines of the English “asshole”, but rather refers to someone too prone to partying.
    On second thoughts, still no alternatives: gilipollas. As for the whole title it is not easy to translate. A Ghostbusters-like simbol is a very good suggestion, and it would probably be indexed in book stores and libraries as “Prohibidos los gilipollas” (Assholes forbidden). But I really cannot think of a satisfactory way to translate the title exactly. If you try something using the word rule, it comes out as “La norma de los no gilipollas”, but the meaning is entirely different and it would seem to refer to a rule for the non-assholes, or made by the non-assholes. If you want to use a word meaning rule or law, you would have to sacrifice “asshole” and go for something along the lines of “La Ley de la No Gilipollez”, but that would read something like “The Law of No “Assholeness””.
    Perhaps simply “Contra los gilipollas” (Against the assholes).
    I really can’t think of anything better. If the decision was mine, and among these options, I would go for the Ghostbusters. Good luck with your decision, but for God’s sake don’t you let them talk you away from “gilipollas” for the Spanish (Spaniard?) edition.

    Reply

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