"The fountain of butterflies" According to the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy, we can know that "trabajo" (work) comes from the Latin "tripalium", which literally meant "three sticks" and was a ...
"The fountain of butterflies"
According to the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy, we can know that "trabajo" (work) comes from the Latin "tripalium", which literally meant "three sticks" and was an instrument of torture made up of three stakes to which slaves were tied. Through a metonymic evolution, the term "trabajo" acquired the meaning of "penalty, annoyance, torment or unhappy event." That is, this name went from designating an instrument of torture to referring to one of the effects of torture: suffering.
If suffering is linked to economic retribution, here is our current concept of work. It is again an evolution of a metonymic nature, because for some, perhaps for many, it is not my case, suffering is present in any of the activities with which we earn our bread. Let's think, without going any further, about the traditional jobs in the countryside. For those who want to give that vision of suffering to work, they will not lack, depending on how they look at it, examples. Anyone who has harvested knows what kidney pain is, freezing in the morning, sweating at noon, getting wet when it rains?
But, I will analyze and comment on the different meanings that the Royal Spanish Academy establishes for the word "trabajo" (work). The first: to engage in any physical or intellectual activity, and gives as an example "working on the doctoral thesis". The second meaning is that of "having a paid occupation in a company, an institution." A third refers to work as "exercising a certain profession or trade", journalist or gardener presents us as examples.
I am going to ignore those that do not refer to actions carried out by people, so I jump to the seventh meaning: "try to achieve something, generally with effort", and gives as an example working for peace.
The tenth meaning that our dictionary gives to the word work is that of "applying or dedicating oneself with effort to the realization of something" and the fourteenth "trying to influence someone to achieve what is desired of him." To situate you well, the example that the Royal Academy puts is "she worked her husband to change his mind" or "worked a client".
As we can see, not all the meanings that the Royal Spanish Academy gives to the word "trabajo" (work) involve a necessarily painful or expressly remunerated action. But, in any case, I have never liked to use the word "trabajo" for the activities I have carried out, whether heavy or not and/or whether paid or not. The vast majority of the things I have done I have done with pleasure, with enthusiasm and, generally, without worrying something, little or much about receiving economic remuneration.
Therefore, depending on what acceptance is used or mentality is had, the statement that many worry about attributing to me that I have not worked much could be correct. On the contrary, I do not accept the other one at all that I have always lived off the story.
Lorenzo Lemaur Santana
Councilor of the Popular Party in the Arrecife City Council
