{"id":893,"date":"2010-03-26T20:16:24","date_gmt":"2010-03-26T20:16:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/spanish\/?p=893"},"modified":"2010-03-26T20:16:24","modified_gmt":"2010-03-26T20:16:24","slug":"greguerias","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/spanish\/greguerias\/","title":{"rendered":"Greguer\u00edas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Today we are going to talk about a literary device that is part of Spanish culture: a mixture between \u201c<strong>juego de palabras<\/strong>\u201d (pun) and <strong>met\u00e1fora<\/strong> (metaphor), known as <strong>Greguer\u00eda<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The name was coined by the Spanish author Ram\u00f3n G\u00f3mez de la Serna, one of the first writers to use this device. He was born in 1888 and, even though he studied <strong>Derecho<\/strong> (Law), he dedicated his whole life to literary and artistic pursuits. De la Serna was not only \u201c<strong>el padre<\/strong>\u201d (the creator of) Greguer\u00edas, but also a prolific author of biographies, novels, plays, essays, literary magazines and newspapers\u2026 He was one of the most important figures in the Spanish <strong>Vanguardia<\/strong> (avant- garde), took part in <strong>tertulias<\/strong> (informal public debates to share ideas and discuss about politics, art, society, etc.) and was a great influence in the <strong>Surrealismo<\/strong> (Surrealism), where the element of surprise was one of the main features.<\/p>\n<p>Greguer\u00edas are poetical sentences, with some hints of humor and metaphor. The author obtains a funny effect through:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Visual association of two      different images: <strong>La hache es la      escalera del abecedario<\/strong>.\u00a0 (The      letter H is the ladder of the alphabet)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Free association of related      concepts: \u00a0<strong>Aquel tipo ten\u00eda un tic, pero le faltaba un tac; por eso no era un      reloj<\/strong>. \u00a0(That      guy had a tic, but he was missing a tock; that\u00b4s why he wasn\u00b4t a clock.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Free association of opposite      ideas: <strong>No importa que nuestro vaso      sea peque\u00f1o, pues lo importante es que la botella est\u00e9 llena<\/strong>. (It      doesn\u00b4t matter if our glass is small, because the most important thing is      that the bottle is full.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The reversal in the logic      relation between two concepts: <strong>Lo      m\u00e1s importante de la vida es no haber muerto<\/strong>.\u00a0 (The most important thing in life is not      to be dead.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>But Ram\u00f3n G\u00f3mez de la Serna is not the only Spanish author who became famous for his humorous and satiric works in the beginning of the 20th century; we can find another example in the <strong>jienense<\/strong> (from Ja\u00e9n) Antonio de Lara Gavil\u00e1n &#8220;Tono&#8221;, who used both language and images to create early examples of graphic humor:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/spanish\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2010\/03\/Tono-tlf1.gif\" aria-label=\"Tono Tlf1 222x300\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-899 aligncenter\" title=\"Tono tlf\"  alt=\"\" width=\"228\" height=\"308\" \/ src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/spanish\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2010\/03\/Tono-tlf1-222x300.gif\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">\u201cYou must be mistaken sir, because I don\u2019t have a phone\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/spanish\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2010\/03\/tono-secuestradores1.gif\" aria-label=\"Tono Secuestradores1 220x300\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-900\" title=\"tono secuestradores\"  alt=\"\" width=\"220\" height=\"300\" \/ src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/spanish\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2010\/03\/tono-secuestradores1-220x300.gif\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">\u201cExcuse me, is this the kidnapper&#8217;s home?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I tried to write my own one. What do you think?:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;<strong>La luna es el queso del cielo, que a veces es mordido por el rat\u00f3n del sol&#8230;<\/strong>&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Now let\u2019s have some fun\u2026 Can you rearrange these sentences to create <strong>greguer\u00edas?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>dando la mano &#8211; a su pie &#8211; se saluda &#8211; a s\u00ed mismo &#8211; El beb\u00e9<\/li>\n<li>Las camisetas \u2013 los recuerdos \u2013 como &#8211; encogen<\/li>\n<li>de los mayores \u2013 El cigarro \u2013 el chupete \u2013 es<\/li>\n<li>hay que ir- por detr\u00e1s \u2013 Al cine \u2013 bien peinado \u2013 sobre todo<\/li>\n<li>de denunciar &#8211; La gallina &#8211; en la comisar\u00eda &#8211; los huevos &#8211; est\u00e1 cansada &#8211; que le roban<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<img width=\"257\" height=\"350\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/spanish\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2010\/03\/tono-secuestradores1-257x350.gif\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><p>Today we are going to talk about a literary device that is part of Spanish culture: a mixture between \u201cjuego de palabras\u201d (pun) and met\u00e1fora (metaphor), known as Greguer\u00eda. The name was coined by the Spanish author Ram\u00f3n G\u00f3mez de la Serna, one of the first writers to use this device. He was born in&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/spanish\/greguerias\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":900,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[82,358367],"class_list":["post-893","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","tag-idioms","tag-literature"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/spanish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/spanish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/spanish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/spanish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/spanish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=893"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/spanish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":914,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/spanish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893\/revisions\/914"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/spanish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/spanish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/spanish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/spanish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}