Here are two more instances of creative translation in “Macanudo”.
The Spanish dialog means: “I wish the leaves had eyes.” – “Ha ha ha! The things you say!“
In both cases the gag is a simple (auditory) pun: in English twofold on “leave(s)” (noun/verb); in Spanish threefold on “ojalá“=”wish”, “hojas“=”leaves”, and “ojos“=”eyes” (one verb and two nouns; all three words sound very similar).
In this second case the difference between the two language versions is more extreme:
In Spanish: “Do you like it when I call you a lunatic?” – “Yup.“
Perhaps the translator did not trust English-speaking readers to recognize the “lunar” etymology of “lunatic”, or maybe she simply loved the song lyrics more.
P.S. Several months ago I looked up the meaning of the name “macanudo“, discovering that it meant “a person or thing considered admirable or excellent because of its positive qualities“. Besides being an eminently appropriate name for the comic strip, this also explains why it is the name of a cigar brand. I was in Copenhagen (on vacation) just a few days before I created this post, and just happened to run into this shop:
Comics I Don't Understand 
So I guess you guys were cutting class on the days they taught the impersonal optative ojalá que construction!
@ Danny (@1) – No, I was never absent from Spanish class, but that was way back in high school. That translation came directly from Microsoft Bing:
…
P.S. If you have a better rendition to offer, please enlighten us.
I LOOVVVVE the pizza pie one. It was a literal LOL for me.
I am confused over the word ‘liniers’ though. I looked it up and Google coughed up lots of different meanings, such as: having the form of a line; a neighborhood of Buenos Aires; a linesman or assistant referee; a real or imaginary mark positioned in relation to fixed points of reference; …and my favourite… liniers itself doesn’t have a specific meaning.
None of these seem right. Am I missing something obvious?
@ Stan (3) – “Liniers” is the nom-de-plume of Ricardo Siri, the author of Macanudo. Although it might have been better to tag these CIDU posts with his real name, the effort required would be prohibitively difficult, since there are dozens of posts in which Macanudo has appeared. Besides, it is his official byline on the published comics.
I’ve updated the tag main entry to say “Liniers (Ricardo Siri)”. Is that the preferred form? Even though the tag is attached to 52 posts now, there was nothing that had to be done to them individually.
I think some time ago we got into a split-tag situation where there were two different tags in the system, using two different forms of the attribution. That kind of situation does require visiting a bunch of posts individually, as far as I can see, but we did it and got them unified. I don’t remember if we discussed at that time which form to use; but that left it a simple matter to edit the tag text in one place.
There are a few other instances of attribution tags that have gotten split and we are sort of waiting for an occasion to spur doing the job of unifying some that come to attention. The moral of the story for the editorial team is to always prefer accepting a suggestion rather than typing a different form — even if the suggestion is misspelled, you can retroactively correct them centrally without having to cause and then heal a split.
@ Mitch (5) – Excellent solution: that adjustment looks perfect.
I tried asking Bing Copilot (Microsoft’s AI chatbot) for a translation, and got the following dialog. (slightly edited to remove some not-particularly helpful reference links.)
Me:
Can you translate, “Ojalá las hojas tuvieran ojos.”?
Copilot:
Sure! The phrase “Ojalá las hojas tuvieran ojos” translates to “I wish the leaves had eyes” in English.
Is there a specific context or reason you’re interested in this phrase? It sounds quite poetic!
Me:
It was used in a cartoon called Macanudo. It is usually published with different versions in english and spanish.
Copilot:
That’s interesting! “Macanudo” by Liniers is known for its whimsical and often poetic content. The phrase “Ojalá las hojas tuvieran ojos” fits perfectly with the imaginative and reflective style of the comic.
Do you have a favorite strip or character from “Macanudo”?
(I didn’t answer the bot’s last question since I usually only see Macanudo here on CIDU.)
The Spanish word ojalá has an interesting etymology. It’s from Arabic ‘law šá lláh or “if Allah would want it”. It entered the language after the Muslims invaded Spain back in the 8th century. Spain eventually drove them back out, but there are still traces in the language.
The Wikipedia article for “Inshallah”, apparently the modern form for the expression Ken brings up, which an Islamic person can use even when not speaking Arabic, has a note in the “Other languages” section about Spanish ojalá. Unlike some of the other languages mentioned, this usage in Spanish is not still tied to “God willing”.
I know the meaning of Ojala from high school Spanish – one of the phrases I remember – which instantly jumped into my head on reading the word was “Ojala que se mejor pronto” – “I hope you are feeling better soon”.
I did not do anywhere as well in languages in school as I did in math and science.