Robin:

Well, I think the joke was probably unintentional. The sort of thing
goes on in the Southwest still, a subdivision or a street is given a
Spanish name for atmosphere and yet it has strange results, the contented
street is not the same in Spanish as the street of contentment the
subdividers meant. The assumption is that Spanish words can be just
plugged into English grammar. The result is often funny to Spanish
speakers who are the only ones who 'get' the 'joke.' My father-in-law,
a native speaker of Spanish, remembers watching the Lone Ranger back
when the show began in black and white, and how they all laughed
at Tonto's name. I mean, how funny, after all to be watching a show
where the loyal sidekick is called "Stupid," and even more so, if
it's played perfectly straight, and no one knows, except you of the
appropriated minority.

Well, I don't know, you are saying David/Jonathan, Achilles/Patrocles,
Batman and Robin is a different lineage than Don Quixote/Sancho Panza?
Maybe it's the difference between tragedy and comedy?  I don't know
the Lone Ranger/Tonto (and I keep mistyping that as "Tanto" which in
Spanish means "too much"! ha) seems more of the first, than of the
second. Tonto was more practical perhaps, but then so was Jonathan,
and even Patrocles, at least as far as considering the practical results
of Achilles' sulking in his tent.

Ah, well, perhaps everyone is just thinking of him or herself, tanto,
tanto, tanto.

Best,

Rebecca

Rebecca Seiferle
www.thedrunkenboat.com



-------Original Message-------
From: Robin Hamilton <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 04/01/03 04:38 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: hex renditions--Hey Roger!

>
> Rebecca:
> It was "Hi Yo, Silver, Away"

Ah, right, comes back to me now -- but look, for me, it was forty years
ago,
and I wasn't taking notes at the time.

<<
which is also funny, because "yo" in Spanish is "I."
>>

[Tongs, ya bas.]

I'm doing a radical rethink on this at the moment.  God, I utterly HATE to
have my preconceptions overturned, but your sense of the Lone Ranger as a
complex Spanish-American joke makes LOTS of sense.

<<
The "White Man" punchline is the later and one might say more postmodern
one
(also politically correct.)
>>

Dunno that it +is+ the more pc -- I'd see it as less.  "Quimosabe" is (as
you've pointed out) a neat linguistic marker, but "White Man" could be
seen
as an echo of Every Single Hollywood Stereotype of a Native American On
Film -- DEEPLY non-pc, unless you read it (as it's obviously intended) as
parodic.  But I'll take your word that it +is+ later.  Still think it's
the
snappier, but.  Folk transmission refinement.

<<
Spanish speakers have been laughing at these these since the show came
out,
but who noticed? it's like the Tonto National Forest in Arizona, Stupid
National Forest. What makes it funny is thinking in English and using
Spanish words in completely ridiculous ways. And it becomes an inside joke
because no one thinking entirely in English gets it.
>>

:-(

Right, you're right.

<sigh>

But look, I watched the Lone Ranger on a black-and-white TV on the second
floor of a Glasgow tenement in the late fifities, prolly with a five year
lag from when the series was screened in the States -- at that time, these
American Linguistic Refinements were beyond me.

Still, digesting what you've said, I'm sure you're right.  Makes the whole
thing MUCH more interesting ...

> Well, I don't know, I'll have to think about that lineage from Don
Quixote
and Sancho Panza, though where would that lead us? Batman and +Robin+?
>
> <g>

Nah -- that's the Achilles/Patroclus archetype.  Stereotype.

<grin back>

Sure, there's an elide between the duplo archetypes (think David and
Jonathan => Batman and Robin), but they're (I think) finally distinct.

Robin

(Hey, Rebecca, do you have this sense, given the way no one else has
joined
in, that not +everyone+ on the list knows what we're on about?

Hm ... ?

<g>

R2.)