{"id":57,"date":"2007-08-10T21:58:00","date_gmt":"2007-08-11T03:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/keithcchan.com\/wordpress\/2007\/08\/can-i-rent-a-smoking.html"},"modified":"2007-08-10T21:58:00","modified_gmt":"2007-08-11T03:58:00","slug":"can-i-rent-your-smoking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.keithcchan.com\/wordpress\/2007\/08\/can-i-rent-your-smoking.html","title":{"rendered":"Can I Rent a Smoking?"},"content":{"rendered":"

We sat in a smoke-filled bar on Av. La Marina, a popular strip of department stores, hamburger joints, and discotecas. The place was a big bar, which had an appropriate name: Big Bar<\/span>. It was my going-away party with my coworkers. We just came back to our tables after a round of dancing and we’re enjoying our beers. In my case, I had a coke. Lin, who had taken us on the trip to the south, leaned towards me. I could barely hear what he said over the music and the lasers (which somehow interfered with my hearing).<\/p>\n

Lin<\/span>: ***** smoking **** aquilar.
Me:<\/span> \u00c2\u00bf?
Lin<\/span>: ***** smoking**** aquilar.
Me<\/span>: \u00c2\u00bf?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Lin takes a breath and thinks of another way of saying what he is saying. I know the word smoking. I know the word aquilar (to rent). But I can’t think of a sentence where those two words would make sense. Was he talking about the smoke in the bar? But why rent? Is that a phrase for second hand smoke? Lin continued:<\/p>\n

Lin<\/span>: *translated from Spanish* Aquilar is when, for example I let you use this glass *picks up his glass of beer.* You pay me 50 soles and I let you use it. Then you give it back when you’re done.
Me<\/span>: *translated from Spanish* Right-o.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I confirmed that aguilar is to rent. But… smoking? Lin took another breath, encouraged that I got that part down.<\/p>\n

Lin<\/span>: *translated from Spanish* “Smoking” is clothes you wear to a wedding. We’ll need it tomorrow when we go to my friend’s wedding. We’re going to rent “smoking” tomorrow afternoon.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Smoking is Spanish for tuxedo!!!! What?! How… that boggles the mind. Back in my hotel room I checked my new Spanish dictionary and the translation widget:<\/p>\n

\"Translation<\/div>\n

Indeed: Smoking, spelled exactly the same way, means a tuxedo in Spanish. That’s not confusing at all!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We sat in a smoke-filled bar on Av. La Marina, a popular strip of department stores, hamburger joints, and discotecas. The place was a big bar, which had an appropriate name: Big Bar. It was my going-away party with my coworkers. We just came back to our tables after a… Read more“Can I Rent a Smoking?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[],"tags":[31,4,9],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.keithcchan.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.keithcchan.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.keithcchan.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.keithcchan.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.keithcchan.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.keithcchan.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.keithcchan.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.keithcchan.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.keithcchan.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}