A friend sent me a link that included this word. Here is
what Atomica (yes, wow, it is a "blast") has about it:

es·par·to (ĭ-spär'tô)
n., pl. es·par·tos.
A tough, wiry grass (Stipa tenacissima) of northern Africa, yielding a fiber used in making paper and as cordage.
=========================================================

My question is for you students of Latin out there:
am I right in thinking tenacissima means tenacious?
Because it's so tough? (The fibers are used for making
paper--that's what the link was about.)

-issimo means "very", so
tenacissima = very tenace

Emanuela

The word "esparto" used in English always reminds me of an essay I wrote once comparing three different English translations of Federico García Lorca's Bodas de sangre (translated as Blood Wedding). In this wonderful dark story of love and fate, the Bride lives on a barren, desolate plain, where esparto (Spanish "esparto", used as a tough fiber for weaving) is the only crop that can be grown. Faced with a potential cultural gap, the different translators approached it in very different ways.

One of them used (English) "esparto", braving a possible lack of familiarity on the part of the English-language readers. Another one changed the reference over to (English) "alfalfa", though this translation overlooked the connotations of aridity for the Bride's lands, and the Bride's existence. But the third one translated "esparto" as "hemp"! There are apparently two different forms of hemp, one which yields a tough fiber, and another one which is used to produce the opiate marijuana. I am certain the translator had the first one in mind when producing his/her version, but depending on which form is more familiar to the reader, the image of the Bride's plentiful hemp harvest certainly transforms the story!

"In this wonderful dark story of love and fate, the Bride lives on a barren, desolate plain, where esparto (Spanish "esparto", used as a tough fiber for weaving) is the only crop that can be grown. Faced with a potential cultural gap, the different translators approached it in very different ways."

From the description it is certainly possible that "hemp" was the plant grown. Besides being a source of fiber, it is known to be a tough plant that can grow in many places where other plants would wither.

Sorry for the quibble, but marijuana is not an opiate per se. Opiates are those chemicals related to opium, which comes from the opium poppy, _Papaver somniferum_. Codeine, morphine and heroin are opiates, for example. Read more about it at

http://www.arf.org/isd/pim/opiates.html

http://www.heroin.org/poppy.html

..different translators ..
Quite a revealing story indeed! I'm very much in favor of the first translator. The sound of "Esparto" itself reflects the the asketic toughness of the crop.
I am currently reading "The corrosion of character" by Richard Sennett. The title of the German translation is "Der flexible Mensch" (The flexible human). That's toning it down by several stops!

wsieber adds: The sound of "Esparto" itself reflects the asketic toughness of the crop.

A short note in the Foreword could educate the reader as to the nature of esparto. It seems the best soultion.

A short note in the Foreword

... or a sub-heading under the heading Chapter One ... as there are people (I have heard but never met one) who do not read forewords. (Heavens to Betsy!)
And WHERE did that expression come from?
wow

And WHERE did that expression come from?

I for one would certainly like to know!

As one who has "committed" plenty of translations in the past, I think I would leave esparto in the original, with a footnote the first time it occurs.

I remember my Italian translation of " The catcher in the rye".
There was a whole page - a letter from the translator - to explain WHY he had to translate the title as
Il giovane Holden = Young Holden.
Ciao
Emanuela

translate the title

Sympathies, emanuela - I wandered around endless bookshops trying to find Lampedusa's 'Gatopardo' which my Milanese girlfriend had been raving to me about!

According to Charles Funk, in Heavens to Betsy! & Other Curious Sayings, Harper & Row (1955), several theories have been advanced to explain “Heavens to Betsy,” but none to his satisfaction, and he deems the phrase “source unknown.”

Suggestions include: (1) a corruption of the French phrase, “auvergne betisse,” meaning “what won’t they think of next?”, and (2) some derivation from the frontiersman’s rifle or gun, which was commonly called Betsy for no apparent reason.

According to Charles Funk, in Heavens to Betsy! & Other Curious Sayings, Harper & Row (1955), several theories have been
advanced to explain “Heavens to Betsy,” but none to his satisfaction, and he deems the phrase “source unknown.”

Charles Funk blew it on this one. This is an obvious res ipsa loquitur. It refers to AnnaStrophic's divine nature.

Ah, shucks, Geoff.... then shouldn't the expression be "Heavens to Bette"?