Una Palabra Sola Episode 6, el polvo
El polvo - or dust- can be a powerful thing. It sets the stage in movies and literature like nobody’s business, and for all those chefs out there - very útil en la cocina. Listen to the full episode and think of how you might be collecting dust in your memories, around your experiences— and what you’d like to do about it.
El polvo: (n) dust, powder
Male gender: el polvo
Related words: en polvo (powdered), tener polvo (hook up), hecho polvo (beat, wiped out)
Related verbs: empolvarse (to put on makeup powder, get dusty), pulverizar (to pulverize), desempolvar (to dust or quitar el polvo), espovorear (to sprinkle, dust)
Related adjective: pulverizado, pulverizada (pulverized)
From the Latin “pulvis”, dust, powder
The basics are there… it simple requires more of a single ingredient to become something substantial. Each moment represents small bits of time and energy, but all together make up the days, months, and years of our lives.
1:35: Used a lot in cooking, especially with powdered things.
7:20: “Des” is the prefix of “un”, and can be used for cleaning (desempolvar).
12:50: If something is pulverized and reduced to dust, you have to start over – but if you get enough of it, you can make something of it. It’s not until the dust creates a cloud or a layer that we even realize it’s there.
13:50: What are you thinking of when talking about dusting something off? What’s collecting dust?
For reflection:
What feelings come to you when you think of dust, ash, or starting over? __________________________________________________.
¿Cuáles son algunos recuerdos que siguen sirviendo para ti? ¿Cuáles son más inútiles? ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________.
What has been left to collect dust? What needs or requires your presence, and how can you show up for that part of yourself? _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________.
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TRANSCRIPT BELOW:
Hello and welcome to Una Palabra Sola where we get to learn Spanish, one word at a time. I'm your host, Megan Miller, founder and teacher at Aprovechar Language Solutions; empezamos, and let's dive in. Hola y bienvenidos otra vez to Una Palabra Sola, a podcast where we get to learn Spanish one word at a time. Today's episode is a huge shout out to Kaylon on Instagram who has requested the word polvo for today. So I am going to give you her reasoning why polvo was just in her head, and this is just what a wonderful example of how stories can help us remember words. There was, uh, this big 18-wheeler and it was blocking traffic and a tiny little car, kind of like the car that I drive. Honestly, this kind of sounds like me. A tiny little car tried to get around it and all she could think about was how it would get pulverized in English, and it just kind of hit that "pulverizado" meant to be made into powder or dust.
1:28
That is a wonderful segue into today's word "el polvo" because el polvo means dust or powder. So el polvo is un sustantivo, it is a noun. It does have a masculine meaning. EL polvo. And it basically just means dust and powder. I thought that this was wonderful to drop this episode right before the US Thanksgiving holiday because it is used a lot in cooking. If something is "en polvo", it means that it's powdered. Like "leche en polvo" is powdered milk, Chocolate en polvo, unos de mis favoritos, is powdered chocolate, or chocolate powder, hot cocoa powder, if you will. Anything with that en polvo just means that it is powdered. You can also, empolvarse, or to put on makeup powder to, um, powder your nose, if you will, or the opposite: you can use empolvarse to get dirty, and it still has that polvo root to the word. This comes from the Latin pulvis, not pelvis, but pulvis, which literally means dust and powder. It's one of those wonderful words that is pretty much what the Latin definition was. Didn't really change that much. It was just went from pulvis to polvo and that is what it means in Spanish, which is very nice. As we talk about dust and powder, it got me thinking because polvo, first of all, the V as in Victor in English, we use V very differently, than in Spanish, which it has more of a B sound in Spanish. If you hear "polvo" or "polbo" it's gonna be the same thing. And that v or b, it's just so that you don't have to spend so much time chilling and twerking on that syllable of Vvvvvvv, and quite honestly, as an English teacher, it's, one of the hardest things that I have to teach people, that very is different from berry.
3:57
Anyways, polvo, it is not to be confused with pollo. Pollo is chicken, completely different food versus if something is powdered in polvo. Also, because nothing in this life is PG 13 anymore, there's a slang for tener polvo, or basically the fuck or, or to have sex, is tener polvo or echar polvo, which is basically like hook up. So, just be careful of how you're using polvo. If it is with the preposition en polvo, it means powdered. If it is with the verb tener or echar, that means that you are doing the act of getting jiggy with it, I guess. Or, you can also be hecho polvo and hecho. Different from the verb echar, because hecho is from the verb hacer, to do or to make. And that just basically means like physically beat, physically wiped out. Like you're just kind of done. Like, mi mente está en polvo, my brain is basically dust. Or hecho polvo can also mean like emotionally, you know, torn apart or emotionally frazzled almost. Or like agobiado, like overwhelmed, torn apart, rendida, maybe, frazzled, like hecho polvo is really, it's a no bueno situation. So el polvo, not to be confused with el pollo, Los Pollos Hermanos, for any Breaking Bad fans out there, does have some synonyms and, and I had to get a little clever with the synonyms. Actually, I had to think a little bit, because it's not one of those things where you're like, oh, it just means this and this and this. Like el polvo for dust, for example, it can mean like la Tierra, the earth; it can mean la mugre, dirt. It could also mean, I would say like ceniza, ash, like la ceniza is ash. Or it can mean like partículas, which are a little particles, uh, fun to say in any language or moléculas, or molecules. Like it's just something that is so itty bitty teeny, tiny that you can't really see it, but when it is all grouped into something, that is when you can see it.
6:58
Polvo, dust, powder, you can empolvarse, tengo que empolvar mi nariz, I have to go powder my nose, makeup, or “Oye, no te empolves”, like, don't get dusty; don't get dirty. It's not super common, el polvo, to be quite honest, I see it a lot in cooking. I like beat this into, you know, a fine powder or something. That also makes me think of drogas, maybe, but like if you are on a dirt road, hay mucho polvo, something like that. But then you also have the verb pulverizar, which is to literally reducir el polvo, or to pulverize, like to basically beat into a fine powder. You have desempolvar, which is like, to dust. Des, you have the prefix des, that means to"un", so you're un-dusting, you're quitando el polvo because a lot of times, because polvo means dust, right? A lot of times, general life gets a little dusty. I literally came back from travel and like dusted my office again and it felt so good, but desempolvar, oye, tenemos que limpiar, tenemos que desempolvar, like we have to clean, we have to dust. It's just something that we all do in order to take care of our homes, right? Para cuidar nuestros hogares. But it's also something that, I don't know, it always makes me feel better, like quitando el polvo. So polvo, I mean, it does have kind of this negative connotation a little bit where you know, it's like either a dirt road or it's very dusty, or like there were clouds of dust. Like I could see it in literature coming out. But then it's also para hacer la limpieza, for the antonym, right? Limpieza es uno de nuestros deberes. It's one of our chores that we have to do, so we don't look like that shit pig from the Peanuts movie. Pigpen, I think his name was. It goes back to our Calvinistic, especially in the US, like those Calvinistic roots of cleanliness is next to godliness. And like sometimes doing spring cleaning, it makes you feel really good because you're just getting rid of all of the dust and all of the dirt that just kind of collects as a general rule of life. When we're talking about synonyms of polvo, you can have partículas, moléculas, if you see me, I'm doing a little dance because those are just fun words to say. You can also have ceniza or ash, or you can have la Tierra or la mugre, which is like dirt or more of a mud moment. For the el opuesto, for the antonyms, you have if algo is limpio or if una cosa es limpia, right? It's clean and si está brillante, it's shining. And that's from the verb brillar, to shine. So going back once again to those kind of Calvinistic roots of cleaning is good, and cleaning makes us feel good sometimes. And you want to kind of quitar el polvo or just, you know, get rid of the dust or get rid of the spiderwebs and polish something until it shines, you want to improve it in some way.
11:02
And then of course if something is dusty, no está utilizado, right, it's not used. El opuesto del polvo could be utilizado or utilizada, and that's just simply used. So si algo está utilizado, if something is used, it just means that it's like used regularly. It doesn't have a weird meaning to it. Um, and then you also have all of your verbs, right? Desempolvar is like to sprinkle or dust, like I always think of cookies with that, like sprinkle crushed up peppermint or something. This really has a good connotation into things like cooking and instances where like you, you want that dust or you want that powder of something, right? So cooking, makeup, it's positive connotation. For the rest of you know, the world, it might be a little bit more negative. It might mean something isn't, industrialized or developed. So, if something isn't developed enough, if you're like in that dirt road, or something like that, like there could be a little bit more negative connotation. The more that I talk about this word, the more I really enjoy it, simply because I think that there are a lot of good ties, especially in this time of year, in the end of November if you're listening to this right when it drops. If something is made into ash or made into dust, you can't just add water and it'll come back. You know, like the basics might be there, but they're so disintegrated at that point that you really do have to start from scratch. And I think that that is why as humans, what we like a lot is that story of the best things come from destruction. The phoenix rising from the ashes, or the Thanos snap. If something is dust, it generally means that it's destroyed beyond recognition. However, if you get enough of it, then you can actually make something from that, right? You can't do something with just one dust particulate. Not until the dust particulates create a cloud or create a layer that you even realize that they're there,
13:50
So, my question to you is, what is kind of creeping up or what's appearing, and by itself, you don't really notice it, but it's kind of like a death by a thousand paper cuts? Altogether, it becomes this thing, right? What is that thing for you? And not only that, but how can you improve that thing? How can you polish it off? How can you dust it off? So, do you see dust as a positive or negative? Do you see it as a helpful tool like makeup powder, or do you see it like a negative, like a de-industrialized part of middle America or wherever? And really, how can you change or reframe or polish some of those thoughts that are happening and then, looking inward, if there's something where dust is collecting over a hobby or dust is collecting in a certain area of your life, and I'm not talking about literal dust, I'm talking about polvo en tu mente, right? It could be dust in your brain. It could be dust in your friendships or your relationships like. Are you okay with that layer of dust settling? Is that thing not a priority right now? Or would you prefer to kind of polish that off? Para brillar esa cosa, whatever that thing is. I hope this was helpful talking about el polvo and things en polvo.
15:30
Remember powdered things there, the basics are there. Just simply add water. One of my favorite things ever, and this can also tie back to your values. The values that you hold are your basic things, and what's one way that you can add water and really come into your own? So, I hope that this was helpful and of course to check out the show notes, transcript, request a word, or be on the show, check out Aprovechar.me or AprovecharLanguageSolutions.com. Of course, check out the show notes, etymology, and nice little activities on the website as well. Until next time, un abrazo fuerte. Gracias otra vez and thank you so much for coming along with me on this ride to Una Palabra Sola. Be sure to check out the show notes for additional worksheets and materials. If you have a word that you would like me to review, please let me know at Aprovechar Language Solutions .com. Hasta la próxima vez and until next time.