The use of English words in Spain is becoming a fashionable practice, specially in posh circles. Purists are irritated by that practice and my opinion is that, when existing a suitable Spanish word, the use of an equivalent English word is a snobbism.
But the thing I would like to write about is the coining of new technical Spanish words from English ones. Among computer guys, or gals, is not uncommon hearing verbs like “displayar”, “atachar”. “deletear”, “renamear”, or “resetear”.
Those words are not, and surely will not be, officially accepted and lots of people argue strongly against its use but in this case, clearly against the mainstream opinion, I find several reasons that make its use convenient and acceptable.
- They have precise meanings. If I say “displayar” I mean “showing something on a computer screen”. They don’t need a context to explain its meaning.
- They are not impoverishing our language since they are not substituting existing Spanish words. We have the general purpose “exhibir” and use “displayar” only for computer screens.
- I have grew accustomed to using them and cannot help finding reasons to justify its use.
Juan Maria.
