Sweet and clingy

[muckefuck]

I meant to mention another piece of Crazy Jungle Spanish I picked up from Uncle Betty over the weekend. We explained congee to him and he told us that it sounded like an Ecuadorean dish which is also made of leftover rice and served for breakfast. Like Chinese congee, it often contains savory ingredients, particularly duck, and for that reason is often called meloso de pato. Meloso is a derived adjective from miel "honey" and, thus, means "sticky"--at least in CJS. I would've expected a basic meaning of "sweet" and, indeed, that seems to be the more common definition. (DRAE: "Dulce, apacible. Apl. a personas, palabras, actitudes, etc.")

Betty went on to explain, "A person can also be melosa." Now, since I wasn't sure if he'd said meloso or melosa when he first pronounced the name of the dish, I asked, "Is melosa invariable?" (Cf. rosa, facha, carioca, etc.) Turns out it was a matter of congruence. Whereas from an English point of view, one would expect the (masculine/epicene) citation form, persona is grammatically feminine and, hence, demands a feminine predicate adjective. It was a darling bit of L1 interference.

Comments

[chipuni.livejournal.com]

When I was sick, a local Vietnamese friend would insist that I eat her congee. I forget what was in it -- I remember egg and chicken and garlic and ginger -- but it was pure comfort food.