# Una pelota cuadrada



## Christo86

Hola a todos,

Tengo una pregunta sobre una frase futbolística. 

El jugador brasileño Marcelo dice de su compañero de la selección Ronaldinho:

A Ronaldinho le das una pelota cuadrada y te la devuelve redonda.

You play a bad pass to Ronaldinho and he gives a good pass back to you. ???


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## ilvecchio

Cristo86 - No practico el futbol; tampoco soy muy aficionado.  Puede que hayas traducido bien el sentido de la frase dentro del mundo futbolistico.  A ver que opinan los entendidos.


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## Oldy Nuts

Yo tampoco, pero encuentro que en la traducción propuesta se pierde el lado lúdico del comentario:

You pass a square ball to Ronaldinho and he passes it back round...


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## grubble

My try

You pass a straight ball to Ronaldinho and he curves it back.

Other opinions?


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## k-in-sc

No, it says "square" and "round." It also says "give," not "pass."


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## Juan Jacob Vilalta

Entiendo:

Le das un pase malo, te regresa uno buenísimo.
O sea: Ronaldihno es un crack.


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## swift

En definitiva, se hace referencia a la *habilidad *y a la *magia* de Ronaldinho con el balón: tan artístico es su juego, tan talentoso es el jugador, que podría convertir una pelota cuadrada en una pelota redonda. Es decir, _he is so skilled that he could make a soccer ball out of a clump_ warning: ¡que no es una traducción!). Cuando vi este hilo más temprano, no me pareció que la propuesta de Christo cuadrara, precisamente, pero a falta de una mejor propuesta quise considerar algunas opciones antes de hacer cualquier comentario. Y sigo sin dar pie en bola.


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## Oldy Nuts

Me permito insistir en que las proposiciones que no hablen de una pelota redonda y una cuadrada pierden el sentido bromista/juguetón de la frase original.


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## k-in-sc

Agree. The translation is "Give Ronaldinho a square ball and he'll give it back to you round." The meaning is that he's good.


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## swift

Insisto en el signo amarillo →  que puse en mi mensaje y en el hombrecillo sonrojado →  porque no encontraba una buena solución que se haya al final de ese mismo mensaje.

Por supuesto, la solución de Karen es la más respetuosa de la frase de partida y tiene perfecto sentido en inglés, además de conservar el sentido figurado del original.


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## Juan Jacob Vilalta

Oldy Nuts said:


> Me permito insistir en que las proposiciones que no hablen de una pelota redonda y una cuadrada pierden el sentido bromista/juguetón de la frase original.



Por supuesto.
En español es curiosa la frase, desde luego, y ya hemos aclarado el significado.
A dejarlo así en inglés, a ver si entienden... problema suyo.


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## bzu

Oldy Nuts said:


> Yo tampoco, pero encuentro que en la traducción propuesta se pierde el lado lúdico del comentario:
> 
> You pass a square ball to Ronaldinho and he passes it back round...


I really like this translation, although I would change it very slightly:

"Pass a square ball to Ronaldinho, and he'll pass it back to you round".

"To pass a square ball" is a commonly used term in football to refer to a horizontal pass (i.e. one that doesn't go forwards or backwards). So "passing a square ball and getting it back round" in English actually sounds like a clever little play on words.


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## swift

El problema es que en la frase de partida "dar" no pareciera tener el sentido de pasar el balón horizontalmente sino casi el de entregársela en las manos, como si de un mago se tratara. Desgraciadamente, no poseemos los suficientes elementos contextuales para resolver la traducción de una manera satisfactoria. Es por eso que la propuesta de K. parece ser la más convincente hasta ahora.


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## Oldy Nuts

Sí, es la que más me gusta de las recibidas.


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## bzu

Bueno, la sugerencia de k-in-sc efectivamente no es más que la traducción  literal. No sé mucho de expresiones del fútbol en español, pero tenía la  idea de que "dar una pelota cuadrada" quería decir algo así como "hacer  un mal pase" (parece que Christo86 tenía la misma idea, ya que se le  ocurrió traducirlo como "you play a bad pass to Ronaldinho"). Debido a esto, me gustaba más lo de "pass a square a ball", ya que aunque no conserva el juego de palabras original (si es que lo hay), crea uno nuevo que suena bien y mantiene un sentido parecido.


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## swift

Si el sentido de _dar_ se llegara a comprobar, se me ocurre que podríamos optar por una yuxtaposición: *Hand him a square ball, etc.*. Sólo una idea, claro.


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## bzu

But why "hand" a ball to a football player? The magic he conjures up comes from his feet. In a football context, a player "giving" the ball to another is usually understood as "passing", and from what I've noticed it's the same in Spanish with the verb "to dar".


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## k-in-sc

A "pelota cuadrada" is a virtually unplayable ball. A "square pass" is just a horizontal pass.
The original does say "pasas":
También tuvo palabras de elogio para Ronaldinho, con el que coincidirá sobre el terreno de juego de Craven Cottage: "Con él no es necesario ni hablar. Jugar con él es fácil. Le* pasas* una pelota cuadrada y él te la devuelve redonda".
http://www.marca.com/2011/09/04/futbol/equipos/real_madrid/1315160114.html


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## swift

En un saque de banda, no es raro que la pelota se entregue en las manos. Por eso decía que el sentido de "dar", verbo por lo demás polisémico, se debe comprobar.


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## bzu

k-in-sc said:


> A "pelota cuadrada" is a virtually unplayable ball. A "square pass" is just a horizontal pass.
> The original does say "pasas":
> También tuvo palabras de elogio para Ronaldinho, con el que coincidirá  sobre el terreno de juego de Craven Cottage: "Con él no es necesario ni  hablar. Jugar con él es fácil. Le* pasas* una pelota cuadrada y él te la devuelve redonda".
> http://www.marca.com/2011/09/04/futbol/equipos/real_madrid/1315160114.html


Okay, I can see you've Googled  "pelota cuadrada" and now  discovered it refers to a bad pass (as was inferred in the original  post, and mentioned by me above), rather that just a square-shaped ball, as your literal translation suggested.

  As I said, with "passing a square ball" you are *not*  conserving the original play-on-words (which you didn't spot), but creating a new one which maintains a similar-ish  idea... you don't make a bad pass, but a pedestrian one which comes back  "special" (i.e. made circular from square by the magical skills  of the player).



swift said:


> En un saque de banda, no es raro que la pelota se entregue en las manos. Por eso decía que el sentido de "dar", verbo por lo demás polisémico, se debe comprobar.


I think it's stretching it a wee bit to suggest that the original phrase was referring to the ball being passed by hand from a throw-in... But hey, just my opinion. Let's see if the original poster comes back and gives us more context and also his view on our posts .


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## k-in-sc

No, he meant literally a square ball, not square in your sense of horizontal.


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## grubble

The problem for me is that, even though I now understand "square" to mean "in the shape of a cube", I still cannot read "...gave/passed him a square ball..." in that way. Nor can I read "send it back round"  as "send it back in the shape of a sphere". The wordplay just doesn't work. The conventional meanings are too strong to allow for ambiguity.

The reason is that "a ball" as described by (British) commentators and footballers themselves means "a shot". Here is another example:

_Long ball (often colloquially referred to as 'hoofball') is the term used in association football to describe an attempt, often speculative, to distribute the ball a long distance down the field via a cross, without the intention to pass it to the feet of the receiving player._
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_ball

No-one watching soccer would take "a long ball" to refer to the dimensions of the football.

The best I can do is:

You give him a square-shaped ball and he gives it back round.


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## Christo86

Hi everyone!

Thanks for all your ideas. As bzu says, when I made the post I knew that una _pelota cuadrada_ means a _bad ball_ in English, not a square ball, which is neither negative or positive it just describes the movement of the ball on the pitch as going neither forwards nor backwards, i.e. completely neutral. This is why I didn´t give the literal translation that k-in-sc suggested, to me a square ball does not mean the bad type of pass that the player is talking about.

I´m pretty sure Marcelo did not mean a literally square ball, I think that would be a different sport. 

I was hoping for a translation into English that would carry the double meaning from the Spanish. Let´s see if anyone has any other suggestions.


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## grubble

Christo86 said:


> ...
> 
> I was hoping for a translation into English that would carry the double meaning from the Spanish. Let´s see if anyone has any other suggestions.


Can you spell out in detail what the double meaning is and use different words from the original?


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## SydLexia

"Pass him the worst ball in the world and he'll pass you back one of the best."

syd


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## Christo86

I mean the play on words. Ronaldinho returning a bass pass (a figuratively square football which doesn´t exist and would be very difficult to play with) with a good pass (a nice round ball that we can all recognise).

I think Oldy Nuts has the best possible suggestion.

You pass a square ball to Ronaldinho and he passes it back round.


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## grubble

Christo86 said:


> I mean the play on words. Ronaldinho returning a bass pass (a figuratively square football which doesn´t exist and would be very difficult to play with) with a good pass (a nice round ball that we can all recognise).
> 
> I think Oldy Nuts has the best possible suggestion.
> 
> You pass a square ball to Ronaldinho and he passes it back round.


Okay. However it just doesn't work for me. I don't have any sense the the ball is figuratively square when I read this. (Not even now I know I am supposed to)

If you're happy with it though...


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## Christo86

I think translating a _pelota cuadrada_ by itself would just mean a _really bad pass_ in English. The ball becomes figuratively square when Marcelo suggests that it comes back from Ronaldinho _redondo, _which has the physical meaning of the shape and the idea of being good.


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## Oldy Nuts

Frankly, I think we are all just groping in the dark, and that the only person who can explain the real meaning (and all hidden meanings, if any) of the phrase is the author himself. All I can say is that, not being a football fan but neither a complete ignorant, I had never heard the phrases "pasar una pelota cuadrada" or "devolver una pelota redonda" refered to speciall passes in the field. Regardless of what similar expresions may mean in American English, in which "football" by some sort of miracle became "soccer".


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## grubble

A joke that has to be explained ceases to be a joke. The fact that this has caused so much discussion means to me that the original phrase wasn't so clever after all.


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## k-in-sc

The idea of a ball that is square is the same in Spanish and English ...


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## Oldy Nuts

grubble said:


> A joke that has to be explained ceases to be a joke. The fact that this has caused so much discussion means to me that the original phrase wasn't so clever after all.



Could it be that it was never meant to be clever but just directly funny, and the naive joke doesn't survive translating because in English a square ball happens not to be a square shapped ball?


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## bzu

Oldy Nuts said:


> Frankly, I think we are all just groping in the dark, and that the only person who can explain the real meaning (and all hidden meanings, if any) of the phrase is the author himself. All I can say is that, not being a football fan but neither a complete ignorant, I had never heard the phrases "pasar una pelota cuadrada" or "devolver una pelota redonda" refered to speciall passes in the field.


Neither have I, but looking in Google it seems clear that "dar una pelota cuadrada" is used in Spanish football talk to mean "make a bad pass", whereas the literal translation of this expression doesn't mean the same in English, as was suggested by someone above.



Oldy Nuts said:


> Regardless of what similar expresions may mean in American English, in which "football" by some sort of miracle became "soccer".


Indeed. I never understood how a game played with neither a ball (in the strict sense) or with the feet (apart from occasional kicks) came to be called "football".


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## k-in-sc

bzu said:


> Neither have I, but looking in Google it seems clear that "dar una pelota cuadrada" is used in Spanish football talk to mean "make a bad pass", whereas the literal translation of this expression doesn't mean the same in English, as was suggested by someone above.


It would be helpful if you could provide some examples.


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## robjh22

If you're still looking for an English analog to a figurative "pelota cuadrada", there exists the "brick" in basketball. It means a really bad shot, it's square (rectangular prism really) and it sounds like fútbol's "pelota cuadrada."

So ... you give him a brick and he'll send back a ball?


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## Oldy Nuts

robjh22 said:


> If you're still looking for an English analog to a figurative "pelota cuadrada", there exists the "brick" in basketball. It means a really bad shot, it's square (rectangular prism really) and it sounds like fútbol's "pelota cuadrada."
> 
> So ... you give him a brick and he'll send back a ball?



For me, the problem is that, in Spanish, "una pelota cuadrada" means just a square shaped ball, at least to the best of my knowledge. Except for bzu's statement, that my own Google search did not corroborate, I have not seen "una pelota cuadrada" used as a synonym for "un mal pase".


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## Sunshine on Leith

I always thought that listening to football talk, was like listening to a broken record, speaking of which, what would you call that thing on Katy Perry's head:
(Fenixpollo will surely delete me for being off topic)
http://popcrush.com/katy-perry-video-of-the-year-2011-mtv-video-music-awards/


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## Juan Jacob Vilalta

Sunshine on Leith said:


> (Fenixpollo will surely delete me for being off topic) He will.
> http://popcrush.com/katy-perry-video-of-the-year-2011-mtv-video-music-awards/ Excellent!



A veces me pregunto para qué darle tantas vueltas a un asunto. Llevamos 37 intervenciones.
Pelota cuadrada es realmente una expresión curiosa, y chistosa, y hemos visto que fácil de entender y, por lo visto, nada común.
Mantengamos el asunto en inglés, y basta. Y que se entienda en ese idioma, punto.


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## k-in-sc

Juan Jacob Vilalta said:


> A veces me pregunto para qué darle tantas vueltas a un asunto. Llevamos 37 intervenciones.
> Pelota cuadrada es realmente una expresión curiosa, y chistosa, y hemos visto que fácil de entender y, por lo visto, nada común.
> Mantengamos el asunto en inglés, y basta. Y que se entienda en ese idioma, punto.


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## jasminasul

Quizá haya alguna expresión en inglés británico como "a wounded duck" o "a hospital pass". Por ejemplo: you (give) him a wounded duck and he (returns) a swan.


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