Valen Iricibar 
Every Sunday, I try to group our translation troubles under a theme, but sometimes — most of the time — the news cycle and indeed life doesn’t work that way. So here’s an eclectic mix, a cambalache as we would say, of three words and phrases that stood out to us over the past week.
Intervenido
Oh, this is a dreaded word in the newsroom. This week it came up in the context of presidential hopeful Patricia Bullrich’s research institute being intervenido or “intervened by” the government. The term has also reared its head in stories about the power company Edesur and even the 1978 World Cup. It’s a process somewhere between a takeover and an external audit where neither word completely fits the bill and “intervened” could mean anything. Basically, the government steps into a company or institution to scrutinize activities in the context of a judicial investigation without fully taking the helm or seizing assets.
We went with our classic strategy of being transparent with our readers, showcasing the Spanish word and logic by saying that the process is known as intervención — a word that in English has taken an entirely different colloquial meaning.
Travesti
Argentina had its first non-binary march on Friday — the first in the region and, according to organizers, the world. One objective of the march was to showcase the sheer number of identities that exist outside of the gender binary, including travestis (although not all travestis identify as non-binary).
The Herald has consistently used the word travesti in articles despite the fact that its direct English translation is a slur — the thing is, it was a slur in Spanish too. The community reclaimed the word, naming themselves with a deep cultural pride that has resonated across Latin America. So we consider that it would be a disservice and simply inaccurate to gloss over the term or use “trans woman” instead — which happened with the Google Doodle of Diana Sacayán — because they are not synonymous.
Arrugar
Last Sunday, the Néstor Kirchner gas pipeline was inaugurated in a political ceremony where Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner once again made her support of Economy Minister Sergio Massa’s presidential candidacy clear. She praised his tenure as minister saying “You took office in a very difficult moment and no arrugaste.”
The literal translation of arrugar is “to wrinkle or crease” but it’s commonly used to describe backing down or cowering. Obviously, “you didn’t wrinkle” was not an option and we went with “didn’t waver.” However, two textile-related alternatives come to mind. One is to “shrink” and another to “fold” — a shame that the first was a bit too dramatic and the second so specific to card games. Plus, a player who never folds wouldn’t be lauded for it.
Since you were wondering, cambalache can mean swapping or bartering but it usually evokes the haphazard display of a second-hand shop where you can find all sorts of things for sale next to each other. That image was immortalized in Enrique Santos Discépolo’s 1934 tango “Cambalache,” the lyrics of which equate declining morals to the cambalaches’ “disrespectful window display” where you can “see the bible crying next to a boiler.” The song is a fantastic rant that describes the whole 20th century as a cambalache — what would it make of the 21st?
