A chip off the old block...

One linguistic phenomenon that has always interested me is how different languages have formulated “standard” expressions to communicate the same concept.

For example, in English if you want to express how somebody is acting in a disorganized way, instead of saying just that, you might say that the person is “running around like a chicken with their head cut off.” This communicates your thoughts in a very effective and colorful way, even though neither you nor your audience have probably ever actually seen a decapitated chicken.

In reading Los Informantes, by Juan Gabriel Vásquez (an excellent book by an excellent author: http://www.amazon.com/informantes-Spanish-Juan-Gabriel-Vasquez/dp/9587048687/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262108424&sr=1-1) I was reminded of one way that Spanish speakers express that someone is very much like their parents (something akin to the English phrase “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree): “de tal palo, tal astilla.” Literally, “from such a stick (comes) such a splinter.” Palo means stick, rod, pole, etc, and astilla is the word for splinter. Tal is one of those common but hard to define words that you should definitely work into your vocabulary; here, it means “such.”