[Dixielandjazz] FW: Excuses

Jim Kashishian jim at kashprod.com
Sun Feb 15 12:40:19 PST 2015


Randy wrote:
>I was thinking about excuses that people use for being late or not showing
up to a gig.

Hi, Randy.  What a fun thread.  I suspect we will see lots of posts on this
question.  Since I live in the country that hands down wins the "arrive late
or never" theme, it is very curious that the other 4 guys in our band (all
Spanish) are spot on time every time.  This behavior is far from usual here.

In Spain, arriving late...up to a half hour, is to be expected, and the late
arriver will make no attempt in excusing him/herself.  We often find
ourselves standing waiting for the sound guys to arrive when the deal was
that all the sound be set up before we arrive.  Nevertheless, we are always
there, and kicking ourselves for being on time!

Not arriving at all is written into the Spanish language with the grand
excuse of always using the subjunctive when saying when you will be there.
A Spaniard will say "I should be there at...", thereby giving themselves the
excuse that they never really said the time for sure.

In fact the phrase "for sure" is expressed with the word "seguro", which
doesn't really mean for sure as you would think by the translation into
English.  It really means, when spoken by a Spaniard, "might or maybe".
There is no word to express "for sure", thereby giving the whole population
an out when caught out.  Interesting how a language can bend itself to
express the actions of its users.

So, excuses aren't needed here at all since the language takes care of the
whole problem of being on time or arriving at all.

Jim




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