Parián
In my hometown there is a Mexican restaurant called "El Parián". Up until today I always figured that it was named after a town in Mexico. But today I was reading a story (El Medio Gallito) to a group of children where one page is written in English and the other in Spanish. It mentioned el parián and the English translation on the other page inferred that it was the market in the town square.
Is it really referring to a town, or it is a local term for market, or am I totally off the mark here'
20 Answers
Just for the record, I don't use infer in this way myself (in the sense of to imply), but I had never really thought of it as incorrect, probably just because it is so commonly used in this way. Actually, I had never really thought about it consciously, but I can see what you (Robert and samdie) are saying. There are many such word pairs whose original distinction is now lost.
My completely subjective impression is that the average level of English usage is slightly higher in the UK than in the US, but this is not surprising given the vastly different histories of the two countries.
It mentioned el parián and the English translation on the other page inferred that it was the market in the town square.
...I had a question about the use of "inferred" here. I'm from Britain and to me this word should be "implyed".
From the dictionary:
infer.
1. To conclude from evidence or premises.
2. To reason from circumstance; surmise: We can infer that his motive in publishing the diary was less than honorable.
3. To lead to as a consequence or conclusion: "Socrates argued that a statue inferred the existence of a sculptor" Academy.
4. To hint; imply.
Is this usage (No. 4) not allowed in the UK'
It mentioned el parián and the English translation on the other page inferred that it was the market in the town square.
Hey Nathaniel, I saw in you profile that you are from the U.S. (new York to be specific) and I had a question about the use of "inferred" here. I'm from Britain and to me this word should be "implyed". I was wondering (as James also didn't mention anything) if this use was regional and sounded O.K. to American ears or if it was just a slip of the keyboard so to speak. I would also be interested to hear from any other Brits to see if it sounds bad to them too.
I'm honestly not a nit-picker, I'm just always interested in the way people from different countries speak English.
Thanks James, that helps alot. I decided to look it up on Wikipedia.org and came up with this:
El Parían es una voz de origen tagalo (filipino), que significa mercado. En México durante el siglo XVIII y XIX se construye este tipo de equipamiento en diversas ciudades. Su importancia radica en el tipo de productos que ahí se comercializaban telas, zapatos, perlas, entre muchos productos finos y de importación.
El parían separa a los compradores comunes de los ricos compradores, el Parián a diferencia de los comunes portales, se construye como un edificio cerrado conformado por calles internas y locales para la venta. En todos los casos su construcción está vinculada al fin de la época colonial y a la concentración de riqueza en ese momento. Su construcción se efectúa en centros mineros o centros comerciales importantes.
I wasn't familiar with this word, but someone already asked the exact same question here. Interesting that the word comes from Tagalog.
