Joy of Spanish
¡Pongámonos la camiseta!
Clothing offers some prime fuel for the use of colorful expressions in everyday speech. In English, for example, we say “Clothes make the man,” or to the contrary: “Clothes don’t make the man,” depending on the meaning you want get across. In Spanish we say El hábito hace al monje; in the negative, it would be El hábito no hace al monje. The hábito is the clothing peculiar to any specific office or profession, especially religious. The idea behind these expressions, of course, is that if you dress like an executive, you will be one; you will act like one. If, on the other hand, you dress like bum, you will be a bum and act accordingly.
This goes a little bit further. Returning to our executive, if you dress like one, people will most likely treat you like one. Maybe after some time on the job, and after having been treated royally by all one’s undeserved underlings, one may even begin to function like one. Chalk one up for fast learners. The opposite is usually true, though. In time, reality tends to prevail over pretense, and that gives us the plot for a good number of 40’s and 50’s comedies that can still be seen on television.
The following is parallel expression: La mona, aunque se vista de seda, mona se queda, which means, literally, “Even though the monkey dressed up in silks, she is still a monkey.” Be that as it may, there is another expression in Spanish that also goes along these lines: como te ven, te tratan, or as we would say in English “They treat you according to the way you dress.” Granted, it sounds better in Spanish, maybe because it’s put to use an awful lot. I remember, for example, the case of a friend, a poet, who was also a journalist for a respected Mexico City daily. He was frequently denied entrance to hotels, auditoriums, and press conferences because he dressed more like bum than a journalist (or even a poet, for that matter). He would usually stand quietly outside until another colleague showed up, slapped him on the back, and took him inside with him. Como te ven, te tratan. He was, however (and still is), a good poet and also a good journalist; he just didn’t have much money or desire to look good and fit in.
The same hábito metaphor is used in another expression, which is just as useful: colgar el hábito. Some people say ahorcar el hábito. They mean to “hang up” or “hang” (as in the verb associated with the gallows) the habit. In English we use the imperative “hang it up” when we want someone to give up on something he or she should not continue doing, or trying to do: “Hang it up, Joe. You’ll never become a professional boxer.” In Spanish, if someone, in effect, retires from their position, they are said to have “hung up the habit”: colgaron el hábito.
Another way of putting it, this time in a sporting context, would be to say that we “throw in the towel.” In Spanish the expression is aventar la toalla. This would be good for our friend the boxer who will never become a professional.
Unless someone can correct me (and please do), the custom seems to be that when a boxer has had enough and does not desire to return to the ring and continue getting beaten up, he — or his manager — throws a towel down onto the canvass, signaling the end of the fight. So, when we give up on a particular enterprise, usually in defeat or frustration, we could say the following: aventamos la toalla.
Another good twist to the phrase is colgar los tenis, or “hang up one’s sneakers (or tennis shoes).” This is what we do when we retire: Emanuel colgó los tenis después de 40 años de servicio leal. “Emanuel hang up his tennis shoes after 40 years of loyal service.” It is also what we do when we die. In other words, a euphemistic way to indicate that someone has “moved on to greener pastures” is to say: Fulanito colgó los tenis.
While we’re still on the topic of clothing, one can do just the opposite of hanging up one’s sneakers or habit. One can, let’s say, “put on the T-shirt” of a particular group: ponerse [uno] la camiseta. This means that we decide to become an enthusiastic part of a team effort.
We must remember that the jersey soccer players wear is called a camiseta in Spanish. So ponerse la camiseta means that one adopts the mentality, the drive, and the goals of the team for which one is playing. It is also used metaphorically. If a worker throws himself into his job and is a real team player, we say that he wears the company’s T-shirt: se pone la camiseta.
This isn’t an everyday thing. One usually resorts to this phrase on special occasions, when one has to “rise to the occasion” in order to get something specific done. In Spanish, when one “rises to the occasion,” he or she “gives the width” (which makes no sense in English), but in Spanish it is said all the time: dar el ancho.
Every day we hear comments like Fulano simplemente no dio el ancho. Lo tuvieron que despedir (“So-and-so just didn’t cut the mustard; they had to let him go”). Or Vamos a esperar a ver si da el ancho antes de seguir buscando otros candidatos (“We’ll have to wait and see if she can handle the position before we search for other candidates”).
Next week we’ll continue looking at clothing expressions. If you have one you’d like to see in print, send it in! My e-mail address can be found below. I’d love to hear from you. And don’t forget to check out my blog, totally written in (Mexican) Spanish!
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