" Pare en seco las muertes."

Question

I have some stickers that have a picture of a man stopping a car. It says," Pare en seco las muertes." Does this mean put the brakes on death? Would it mean to stop at stop signs?

Answer 1

"Pare en seco" is a popular expression that means "¡Stop immediatly!". I think you are right, it's a double sense phrase that refers both: "Put the brakes on death" and "¡Stop death immediatly!"

This is the correct answer. Given the context, it is probably tied to some campaing having to do with obeying traffic signs, and thus avoiding deaths caused by car hits. - Gekkosan, Sep 7, 2011

Maybe that campaign was about not to drive while being drunk. - Belldjin, Sep 7, 2011

Answer 2

Pare en seco las muertes,< literally translates to "Stop dry deaths." To what this refers,I presume, is a rare occurrence, generally amongst children, who succumb to drowning, several hours after they have left the water. This occurrence is referred to as >Dry drowning.< Water enters the lungs by aspirated and may go unnoticed except for moderate coughing, or none at all, depending upon many factors, including water temperature, quantity of water aspirated, etc.

Generally the only symptoms one might notice would be difficulty breathing, extreme tiredness or fatigue, and/or subtle behavioral changes. The easiest of these to spot would be the breathing trouble; the aspiration being foreign material to the lungs, would naturally cause coughing and subsequent breathing problems because of space in lungs being taken up by the water. If the lungs are unable to carry oxygen to the brain, tiredness will occur, but would go unnoticed, depending on energy expended while swimming. Behavioral changes, especially in children, would seldom be noticed as being anything other than normal child behavior when tired.

This is an exceedingly creative, wonderful guess, but utterly wrong! :-o Belldjin has the right anwer. - Gekkosan, Sep 7, 2011