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9 ago 2011

El cante cante

I was listening to Flamenco podcast and someone referred to "el cante cante," using a classic contrastive focus reduplication.. (I love techinical terms like this.) Cante means "singing," basically, but it is not the same word as "canto" or "canción." The word cante is specific to the Flamenco ambience, in fact. A "cantaor" is not the same thing as a mere "cantante" or singer. A bailaor is not a bailarín either. So the person talking about "cante cante" meant real Flamenco song, unmixed with anything else. In fact he said, it wasn't "cante fusión," but "cante cante." I think the complete sentence was something like "El cante era el cante cante, no el cante fusión sino el cante cante."

3 comentarios:

  1. Like doing "work work" (work for your job) as opposed to "work" (which could be on anything).

    Heard at one of those egg and chicken stores in Madrid when I was a child, someone described a customer who had just left as "gorda gorda gorda no, pero gorda, gorda." I'm not sure if this is the same, though.

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  2. That's excellent, but not quite the same -- presumably the customer qualified unambiguously as "gorda". The speaker on the radio was trying to avoid confusion with some kind of "cante", as one might use "he's just a friend friend" to avoid innuendo.

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  3. Casi, casi igual. (Almost, almost).

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