I just read a book that had a german word in it that was defined as: Making something worse through an attempt to make things better. The word is schlimbesserung. The natural tendency of idle hands and minds to improve a working system into uselessness.
Hi!
My name is Ana Elizabeth, a half-Venezuelan, half-Colombian, Mexican-born, English teacher living in Milan, Italy.
Well, I know Martha loves Spanish expressions...
To describe a situation that goes from bad to worse we say: "Como ir de Guatemala a Guatepeor!!".
Hope you like it =)
Though it's not really as cool as NewCoking =) it just means to make worse =(...
Still...
Love your show,
Ciao
Ah, I get it!...belatedly. I started out assuming that Guatepeor was some poor village not far from Guatemala, and just out of curiosity went to look it up. But on the way there I suddenly noticed -peor; so, going from Guatemala to Gauteworse. Still, I kept looking to see whether there happened actually to be a place named Guatepeor.
But the only references I saw were of the saying that ternuritanita quotes above, and while I was looking for a geographical reference among all the explanations I suddenly noticed: Going from Guatemala to Gautepeor. Ok, my Spanish isn't that great. But in English it might be like going from Islamabad to Islamaworse. I like it!
Oh, and by the way:
spieramico said
....The natural tendency of idle hands and minds to improve a working system into uselessness.
I'm reminded of something said by Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert: "To a normal person, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. To an engineer, if it isn't broke it doesn't have enough features yet." This is why people like me just have to keep on improving an initially simple program, or an Excel spreadsheet.
Sure is fun, though.
Gracias, Ana Elizabeth. Heard that many times in Argentina, but totally forgot about it - thanks for the reminder. Keep 'em coming!
Bob, sounds like you've got the germ of a word game there with "Islamabad to Islamaworse." Hmmm... from Turkmenistan to Turkmenilaurel?