Family matters have obliged me to cancel my planned trip to Honduras next month, but I’m consoling myself with expanding my vocabulary and working on my verbs. One fantastic (macanudo) idiom I’ve been taught is the Latin American expression for giving birth, dar a luz. (To give to light.) What a great poetic expression, that each new person coming into the world is a gift from a mother to a world very much in need of more light.
15 April 2012
15 April 2012 at 11:39 am
I’m sorry you won’t be going and be assured of my prayers for you and your family always. Thanks for this post, I had no idea that that idiom existed- brilliant.
15 April 2012 at 2:11 pm
I believe the expression, also common in some other Romance languages, arises from the folk ritual of showing the newborn baby to the light of day – so it refers to the first time the child sees the light, not that the child is bringing the light of life into the world.