# Hombre, ahorrar ahorrar...



## Wanna_Spain

Hello,

The question I'd like to ask is a little bit complicated to explain. I am interested in how to express the concept of a repetition of word to give emphasis.
Example:

- Tú ahorras, ¿no?
-Hombre, ahorrar ahorrar... (which means "not exactly"). Is there an expression for that? I have heard to verbs linked by "and" ("well, save and save..."), and I don't know if it has that meaning or not. In case it does not, could you also solve that question?

Thank you


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## BrooklynBoy

Pues, tu pregunta me confunda. Primero dices que esta repetición del verbo da énfasis. Pero luego dices que quiere decir "not exactly". ¿Cuál de los dos?

En cuanto a dar énfasis, en inglés es bien común repetir un verbo para mostrar que la acción sigue por mucho tiempo. Por ejemplo:

The Energizer Bunny keeps going and going and going and going...

The marathon runner just runs and runs and runs and runs.

Pero no sé si eso es lo que quieres decir.


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## elianecanspeak

In English you could say something like "Oh, man, saving...,saving..." as though you wanted to explain how difficult saving was for you, but that you didn't have the words to express it, even though you tried to start to twice.

It would not be a grammatical sentence because it trails off without being finished.

Someone might say something like this while making a hand gesture with the palm of the hand parallel to the floor and rocking it slightly from side to side to indicate unsureness.

(I'm not sure if this what you were looking for.)


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## pubman

My attempt. We do use repetition to to emphasize a point but I think in general we go a bit further than the Spanish usage, for example

Doctor:  Do you sleep well?
Patient: Sleep sleep, that's all I do because these tablets are so strong

In this example the answer is clearly Yes

Doctor: Do you sleep well?
Patient: Sleep sleep, how can I possibly sleep with all my aches and pains

In this example the answer is clearly No.

so yes, we do use it for emphasis but generall go on to qualify it.

I hope this is what you are thinking of.


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## Wanna_Spain

Pubman, I think the last use the one I am looking for.

I know I did not express myself really good, but actually I think we are doing emphasis on how inexact is our answer...

Actually this question came when I got a message:

-"I know you can control yourself, can't you?"
- Control and control...   (THIS is the use I don't undesrtand and I thought this might be the use I am looking for)


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## Wandering JJ

Wanna, no creo que hayamos solucionado tu duda. Por ejemplo, yo no sé si la oración original era en español o en inglés; además si los verbos identicales tuvieron un 'y' o 'and' entre ellos. 

Lo que sé es que en español se encuentra más a menudo varias formas de repetición comparado con lo que se halla en inglés.


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## horsewishr

pubman said:


> Doctor:  Do you sleep well?
> Patient: Sleep sleep, that's all I do because these tablets are so strong
> In this example the answer is clearly Yes
> 
> Doctor: Do you sleep well?
> Patient: Sleep sleep, how can I possibly sleep with all my aches and pains
> In this example the answer is clearly No.
> Para mí etse no tiene sentido--al menos que quisiste decirlo así:
> Sleep?  Sleep?  How can I possibly sleep??


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## _SantiWR_

BrooklynBoy said:


> Pues, tu pregunta me confunda. Primero dices que esta repetición del verbo da énfasis. Pero luego dices que quiere decir "not exactly". ¿Cuál de los dos?
> 
> En cuanto a dar énfasis, en inglés es bien común repetir un verbo para mostrar que la acción sigue por mucho tiempo. Por ejemplo:
> 
> The Energizer Bunny keeps going and going and going and going...
> 
> The marathon runner just runs and runs and runs and runs.
> 
> Pero no sé si eso es lo que quieres decir.




The usual meaning in Spanish is something like that: if we are to stick to the standard definition of 'saving', then the answer is probably not, but if we could come up with some alternative and more flexible way of looking at it, like for example considering beer spending as an investment in a better quality of life, then it could be a completely different story. That's the more humorous usage, which is very common, but it can also be just a less painful way of saying that you don't currently qualify as a saver, or that you don't save as much as you wanted.



Santiago.


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## Wanna_Spain

The example of "control and control" is originally in English, so I got the sms like that, by a native.


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## pubman

horsewihr

What don't you understand about the second example. I see you gave it a 

It sounds perfectly natural to me.


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## Wandering JJ

Wanna_Spain said:


> The example of "control and control" is originally in English, so I got the sms like that, by a native.


 
If the question was about drugs, alcohol, sex or something else serious, yo diría que "control and control" significaba "hasta cierto nivel, sí, después de cierto nivel, no," o "a veces, sí - a veces, no."


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## pepito grillo el amo

when he says "hombre ,ahorrar ahorrar..." he means something like " well...I couldn't actually say I've been saving ...not precisely...",  it's as if the word "ahorrar" weren't the most accurate word to use for him,because he's probably been spending but he feels kind of embarrassed to tell the truth.
it has a distinctly shame feel,a little like" I don't wanna lie to you but at the same time I can't be direct and say : no,I've spent a lot of money,im completely irresponsible!"
I hope I made myself clear and I hope me and the guy who posted the thread will get an answer from a native english speaker who has finally understood what he really meant.


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## craig10

Well, there's saving and saving...  would be a good translation.  

'Well, there's... ' is a common way to say that you're doing something but not whole-heartedly.  As usual in english, it's more in the intonation than the words, it's difficult to explain


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## pepito grillo el amo

at last we got the answer we were all looking for,"Well, there's saving and saving"+proper intonation. thanks craig,Im much clearer about it now


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## Wanna_Spain

Thank you guys, I have learnt several options for several occasions


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## craig10

It can also be said 'Well, there's saving and there's saving', meaning the same thing


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## nand-o

Hola:
Suele usarse de forma humorística, o al menos para suavizar.
- Cariño ¿me engañarías con otra?
- A ver, cielo. Engañar, engañar, ... lo que se dice engañar...uhm no ...no exactamente.

- ¡Te has gastado todo nuestro dinero! ¡Un millón de euros!
- Todo, todo. No. Aun nos quedan unos cien euros.

La entonación es imprescindible usarla correctamente.


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## elianecanspeak

craig10 said:


> It can also be said 'Well, there's saving and there's saving', meaning the same thing




I am not sure that this has the same meaning in AE.  Most us speakers would mean that there are different ways or degrees to saving if they said this, but they would not necessarily mean that they didn't save anything.


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## duvija

Wanna know something funny? the origin of this construction is from Yiddish, went into English, and also into Spanish. It's quite interesting.

In Spanish we tend to add 'como/lo que se dice...'. 
_Ahorrar, lo que se dice ahorrar, no ahorro, pero tengo unos pesitos abajo del colchón._


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## Wandering JJ

duvija said:


> Wanna know something funny? the origin of this construction is from Yiddish, went into English, and also into Spanish. It's quite interesting.
> 
> In Spanish we tend to add 'como/lo que se dice...'.
> _Ahorrar, lo que se dice ahorrar, no ahorro, pero tengo unos pesitos abajo del colchón._


 
Does that have the same meaning as putting _lo que se llama_ between the two infinitives?


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## duvija

Wandering JJ said:


> Does that have the same meaning as putting _lo que se llama_ between the two infinitives?


 
Do you mean 'lo que se llama' instead of 'lo que se dice'? As far as I know, yes, it's the same. The choice is not semantic, but lexical - just a change of word, considering the result has to be vague.


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## horsewishr

pubman said:


> horsewihr
> 
> What don't you understand about the second example. I see you gave it a
> 
> It sounds perfectly natural to me.



I've been watching this thread. Several people have added words or hand gestures to clarify their explanations.  I added punctuation to your second phrase.  To me, the phrase would be very difficult to understand without some way of "hearing" the inflection with which it was delivered.  

In my opinion the infection is completely different in the two examples you gave.  But maybe I'm missing something.  Do my question marks change the meaning (from what you intended)?  To be honest, this whole thread confuses me a little


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## pubman

I agree horsewishr that the thread is becoming confusing. Its not helped by the context of the original question changing half way through. Dujiva correctly identified that the original use of repeating words for emphasis has Yiddish origins. To hear phrases like "sleep sleep" or "money money" is very common and often the butt of many jokes in the UK aimed at mimicing Jewish people. Also many Jewish people use the expressions to laugh at themselves, it is in no way racist or disrespectful. So although it's difficult to convey the inflection it's not necessarily incorrect to use the phrase. And yes, your question marks do change the meaning from what I intended. In my opinion the inflection is exactly the same in both sentences. 
But then again it's not a matter of life and death it's only a different usage and understanding of our common language.


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## duvija

Couple o' problems. As it was said, in this situation, entonation is key.
When we have two identical words next to each other, we tend to use one as a noun and the other as an adjective. The intonation clarifies which is which. Spanish and English stresses them in an opposite way, due to the normal word order in each language.

In Spanish, it seems we cannot just repeat the verb, but we need something that clarifies what we are repeating. I wrote a story once, about my parents (Yiddish language) and I just used the verb, but a friend (and famous writer) corrected me, saying that was not good Spanish. And he was right. I was imitating Yiddish. I'm pretty familiar with this entonation, in this particular case (it is in one of the chapters of my dissertation, on Intonation in Yiddish. A chapter I never finished...)

An example could be, if someone just sits and reads the Torah all day long. 
In English, "reading, he reads, but understanding it? that's another story".

In Spanish I wrote 'Leer, lee, pero no entiende nada' (and it sounded totally normal to me, perhaps due to my Yiddish as a first language - not native, just first). The correction was 'Leer el libro, lo lee, pero ...'  (the verb alone doesn't seem to work).

Am I getting even a tiny bit close to the question asked?


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## Lavernock

Podrías decir tambien "well not exactly saving"
                             " not in the true sense of the word"


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## elianecanspeak

Until I read duvija's post I had not identified the Yiddish component.  Rising intonation in the first repetition of the word and falling in the second repetition, as well as a slight raising of the shoulders and squinching your face up a little can be parts of this usage, as well as hand gestures similar to what I mentioned in post 3. Also, the palms of both hands could be turned upwards, one at a slightly higher position than the other, like an old fashioned balance scale, emphasizing the weight of the differing interpretations of the word in question.


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## BrooklynBoy

craig10 said:


> It can also be said 'Well, there's saving and there's saving', meaning the same thing


 
Also: "Well, there's saving ... and then there's saving."


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