Since I wrote about the etymology of 'Schwarzenegger' three weeks ago, perhaps it's time to look at some of the other candidates:
That last proviso reminds me of an amusing translation error from twenty years ago. One battle in the war over the Falkland Islands was fought at a place called Goose Green. As I recall, the much-lamented magazine Encounter reported that every Spanish-language newspaper in the world except one mistranslated this as 'Ganso Verde', which actually means 'Green Goose': not the same thing at all. The one exception was a newspaper in Spain (La Nación, I think) that gave the correct rendition 'Prado de los Gansos', literally 'Meadow of the Geese'.
It's not surprising that the others got it wrong, since it's a particularly tricky phrase for Spanish speakers, for three reasons:
Of course, a green goose is a rather bizarre concept, so perhaps the various editors should have known to ask a native speaker.
Update: (9/9/03, 11:45 PM)
I'm sure Hoodie Craw and Mary Maloof (1st and 3rd comments) are right and Bustamante means 'sexton, gravedigger'. My own etymology was at least partly tongue-in-cheek, though I did want to believe that it could mean 'Hooterman'. 'Gravedigger' makes sense, since bustum (plural busta) is Latin for "tomb, grave" (originally the place where a body was burned and then buried) and Spanish is of course a direct descendant of Latin. But where does the second half (presumably either 'mante' or 'amante') come from? That still puzzles me.
Posted by Dr. Weevil at August 28, 2003 11:49 PMAccording to my local talk radio station, the name "Bustamente" means "sexton", or as they would have it, "gravedigger". I cannot vouch for the accuracy of this, but since they were not entirely sure what "sexton" meant, I presume they took it from a book?
Posted by: Hoodie Craw on August 29, 2003 02:12 AMI'm not going to push my knowledge of source material, but a 'green goose' would be a freshly killed goose, which has not been hung to age before cooking.
On the other hand, there is the the following: "A goose for the table should be young not more than a year old. A 'green goose' is a bird up to the age of 3 to 4 months, a gosling one up to 6 months." (www.hwatson.force9.co.uk/seasonal/september.htm)
Cheers
Posted by: J.M. Heinrichs on August 29, 2003 10:03 PMHi there ... As a professional translator, I've been asked about the etymology of "Bustamante," and the translation of it as "bust-lover" doesn't make much sense to me. As Dr. Weevil correctly pointed out, there are no compound nouns in Spanish. It seems as if those who are attempting to translate "Bustamante" as "bust-lover" are just trying to be titillating ... pun intended. ;-) I would go with the translation of "Bustamante" as "sexton" or "gravekeeper," especially since the etymology of this word is listed specifically as such at a web page on 17th-century Mexican genealogy: http://members.tripod.com/~GaryFelix/index6.htm
Posted by: mary maloof on September 3, 2003 03:39 PM