Espe speaking English

Unlike most of her "Popular" contemporaries past and present, in both local and central government, Community of Madrid President Esperanza Aguirre - "La Espe" - is genuinely able to speak English, as she proved on Richard "Mr. Ubiquitous" Vaughan's TV station recently. Her fluency is very impressive, her accent is not too bad (though occasionally - and bizarrely - reminiscent of Björk's English accent), but she does make the unforgivable mistake of using responsible as a noun, as well as using a few unnecessary definite articles.

That's what happens if you don't practice, Espe!

Bardem: Not Without My Mother

Here he is, in English.... with Mummy watching.

Best Supporting actor for his role as a serial killer in the Coen brothers' No Country for Old Men, which also picked up a few other gongs including Best Picture. Love him or hate him you've got to admire someone who told his director bosses before filming that he couldn't speak English and then only made one mistake in his acceptance speech.

But he still couldn't help speaking Spanish at the end!

Merry Christmas from Frank Lampard

Mobile phone operator Orange somehow persuaded Chelsea midfielder Frank Lampard to share his own pre-Christmas celebrations. Curiously, Lampard's partner Elen Rives is Spanish and so there may be a Christmas Crib hiding somewhere in the background... his daughter is called Luna for goodness sake (isn't that a dog's name?).

More on Frank's favourite Christmas traditions and more:

• Mince Pies
• Brussels Sprouts
• Christmas Pudding
• Christmas Crackers
• Boxing Day

Oh, and don't think of getting Frank a video camera for next Christmas, eh?

Cartoons censored, Part II

Remember all the chaos that ensued after a Danish newspaper printed a handful of cartoons of the prophet Mohammed? Well, now we have a Spanish equivalent.

Satirical mag El Jueves - a sort of cross between Britain's Private Eye and America's Mad magazine - has found itself in the dock after a court ordered the seizure of all unsold copies of last week's issue.

Why?

Well, the cover featured Crown Prince Felipe and missus engaged in what The Guardian called an ardent session of lovemaking. Under a banner headline that referred to PM Zapatero's one-off €2,500 lump sum handout to parents of newborns (thanks Thetta-pé, virtually a year too late for me to qualify...), the Prince quipped that if he was able to get his wife pregnant (for a third time) it would be the nearest he had come to earning money in his life.


Now, for anyone who has ever browsed this magazine on the newsstands or read the spin-off book "Tocando los Borbones" (the pun doesn't translate very well, so I'll leave the title in Spanish), the aforementioned vignette would not really seem shocking in the slightest (and most "naughty bits" were kept well out of sight), but Judge Juan del Olmo (that's him on the left) seemed to think so and ordered the confiscation of the remaining copies of the mag.

It is curious to think that a moderately witty cartoon on the front of a reknowned satirical magazine could be considered more offensive and embarrassing to the royal family than a national television news report (which I'm sure is still on YouTube somewhere... I'm not linking to it here!) which showed a strong gust of Galician wind blow up Letizia's skirt á la Marilyn Monroe (although HRH was unable to preserve her modesty).

I don't recall any legal action there!

A story of international import nonetheless, and here are just a handful of the reports from around the English-speaking press.

• Al Jazeera


• BBC News


• Mainichi Daily News (Japan)


• Typically Spanish


• Typically Spanish (again)


• The Times of India


• The Guardian


• El Paso Times

Rafa Nadal: English Blogger

Rafa Nadal,currently trying to get his play on grass up to the standard of his Federer-beating play on clay - it's Wimbledon time again - has started writing a blog.

"Ha!", I hear you cry, "how can you be sure that it's really him writing it, and not some Rafa-obsessed fangirl?" Well for a start it's published via The Times' website, which must vouch for its authenticity (if we forget about the Hitler Diaries for a minute, that is)...

... and secondly his English still has... how shall I put it... room for improvement... although fair play to the lad, it is a huge advance on his early tongue-tied replies in English to journalists in the past.

Can you correct his mistakes?
Rafa Nadal's Wimbledon Blog.... in English!

Footnote:
After reading Nadal's first post he comes clean and admits that "most of you know that my English is not that good normally. It is not that I suddenly learned English perfectly. I am writing this blog in Spanish and then it is getting translated into English. Maybe one day I will be good enough to write it in English all by myself, but for the moment it is not the case."

Can he really not afford a native English speaker as his translator then, or have standards slipped so low in the sector?

El Fary is no more, he has ceased to be etc.

Ask 100 Spaniards to identify the celebrity who inspired the "dangly plastic rear-view mirror ornament" below and at least 99 would correctly identify El Fary, who shuffled off his mortal coil and joined the choir eternal earlier this month.

A good example of a personality held in (albeit tongue-in-cheek) high esteem by a broad cross-section of the Spanish populace (non-Spaniards might like to imagine a low-budget, midget version of Tom Jones, but without the powerful voice or personal trainer and dressed even more poorly than Tom at his seventies heights) , and, like Rocío Jurado before him, an oft mocked but equally loved symbol of Spain before it became another modern European economy.

A popular phrase here in Spain is that when a person is deemed to be ugly (very ugly), he would be considered "uglier than El Fary sucking a lemon". Not a nice thing really to be told that you are the very definition of ugliness (and more so if screwing your face up after sucking lemons), but when El Fary was asked on a couple of TV chat shows to actually suck a lemon, he duly obliged, even cracking "but where's the tequila?" when offered the citrus fruit by the host.

Yet although most people outside Spain had never heard of the man that his bank manager calls José Luis Cantero, his local fame was enough for various international newspapers to write his obituary.

Here, dear readers, are those international tributes in full:

• The Independent(UK)
• Pravda (Russia)
• The West Australian
• Forbes (USA)
• Typically Spanish

Plus, in case you hadn't seen it, here's the man's Wikipedia entry.

End it like Beckham

By now the world and his wife (that means you!) will know that David Beckham is packing his trunk (like Nellie the Elephant) and trundling off to the American "Soccer" Circus.

Poor Victoria never really had the chance to be truly "in the garlic" here in Spain despite her other half playing in the Spanish capital for around four years. But then she was never a fan of garlic anyway...

Nonetheless, it was his job, not hers which brought the superstar couple of the 90s to Madrid. In his time here Becks managed to win over the sceptics who thought he was just a pretty face to help Florentino Perez flog Real Madrid shirts in China and Japan and prove himself as a pretty handy player... and no more so than after an awkward period warming the bench at the Bernabeu, and then being sidelined by his national team as well following his decision to stand down as England captain.

After Madrid manager Fabio Capello was forced to eat his words when a series of poor results and injuries meant he had little choice but to include the ostracised Englishman in the first XI, Real Madrid's resurgence was virtually unstoppable, culminating in a heart-stopping, nail-biting final game to beat Mallorca last Sunday and win the League title.

Beckham was taken off in the second half and replaced by Jose Antonio Reyes (on loan from Arsenal). Reyes had underperformed for most of the season, but the Spaniard saved the team's bacon by scoring two goals and winning the match. Another goal was scored for Madrid, either by Diarra or by a Mallorca player's backside depending on which reports you read.

Here's a clip of Becks himself speaking just after the match.

And here's how the game was reported around the English-speaking world:

• BBC News
• The Guardian
• Daily Telegraph
• The Sun
• Daily Mirror

Plus a few general analyses of the Beckham phenomenon in 2007 and general Beckham related rumours:

• Sid Lowe in The Daily Telegraph
• "Tom Cruise to be Becks' boss?" ponders The NZ Herald
• BBC News on cuts made to Mrs. Beckham's TV show

The price of a cup of coffee

Poor old Zapatero.

After agreeing to appear on a revolutionary live television Q&A (an idea cribbed from the French, we hear) where 100 ordinary people were to due to quiz the Spanish Prime Minister on whatever took their fancy, he didn't see it coming.

The obvious questions about the obvious subjects close to the hearts of Spaniards were asked - ETA, house prices, corruption, the beetroot industry etc. - and "thetta-pé" (as he is affectionately known to supporters and detractors alike) answered in the usual stiff, statistical way that politicians often do.

No-one could have accused the PM of not doing his homework, it was obvious that he had spent night after night swotting up on facts and figures (and watching videos of Sarkozy and Ségolène Royal struggling to answer questions in the same situation), but what he hadn't banked on was a question about the price of a cup of coffee, which Zapatero imagined cost "between 70 and 80 cents".

Obviously not a Starbucks double choc chip decaf capuccino frappé fan then.

This is how the English language papers saw it:

• Monsters and Critics
• Expatica (Holland)
• Typical Spanish (Spain)
• EiTB (Basque Country, Spain)
• International Herald Tribune (USA)
• Taipei Times (Taiwan)

Plus a great little observation on the great Thetta-pé coffee blunder is to be found on an ex-pat blog called The Spanish Cockpit. It's simply entitled "D'oh!"

...and those of you curious to see whether Zapatero's views have changed since he was elected in 2004 might like to peruse this TIME magazine article with the man himself in... er... 2004.

No mention of coffee though!

Fat chance

Did you see him on the news?

14 stone of fat and gristle (nearly 90 kilos, or 98 kilos depending on where you read the story) at a mere eight years of age (or seven... depending on where you read the story).

Young Connor McCreadie could have a promising career as a sumo wrestler ahead of him if only he could manage to walk more than five minutes without getting out of breath.

Maybe he fact that the lad can't resist a fry-up could be partly to blame.

"But Britain is full of fat kids!" I hear you cry. Well, yes... but not so fat that the social services are called to see whether letting a child stuff himself with unhealthy food is tantamount to child abuse and therefore a case for withdrawal of parental custody (or putting the child into care).

Apparently he has already broken four beds and five bicycles!

Despite the outcry, Connor was given a second chance and spared the humiliation of being the first kid taken into care for being overweight... despite his mum refusing to put a lock on the fridge. She told the papers that she had tried to get him to eat "exotic fruit"...

...but apparently her son doesn't much care for bananas.

Here's what the papers said:

• The Northern Echo (before the decision)
• Daily Mirror
• Daily Mail
• The Guardian (after the decision)
• CBS News (US)

Or how about watching Connor and his mum try to talk their way out of it on:

• BBC News Video
• CNN Video (US) - not for weak stomachs!

Re: Volver

Listening to few of my students talk about Spain's most celebrated contemporary film director and Spain's most internationally successful actress you'd think that most people in Madrid were hoping that Penelope Cruz wouldn't be in the running for tonight's best actress Oscars.

Yet the fact that "Pe" was nominated at all is quite an achievement considering the lack of critical success garnered in the US for her American films (where she has played a Brazilian, a Greek, a Colombian, a Mexican and even a Frenchwoman - the last of those in Fanfan la Tulipe - but rarely a Spaniard) and for such a (*ahem*) typically Spanish role to boot.

Here's the British trailer, followed by the American one...

Did Almodovar include the scene of Penelope sitting on the toilet as a nod to Tom Cruise's other ex who did the same thing in Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut?

Did a jokey reference to whether Raimunda seemed to have a more generous chest than her mother remembered have its origin in scurrilous gossip about Ms. Cruz's own measurements?

And did the much commented "false rear" that added to the Penelope Cruz is this year's Sofia Loren comments really inspire Victoria Beckham in those poses for the "his and hers" Beckham perfume poster campaign?

Of course the smart money is on Helen Mirren to win for her portrayal of The Queen... but as we all know - unlike Nicole and Penelope - the Queen doesn't go to the toilet.

Some people reading this in Spain still may not realise, but in the English-speaking world dubbing films from one language into another is usually regarded as tacky, and is usually an option limited to pornography and old kung-fu films.

Therefore any Brits, Yanks, Aussies and the like who have seen Volver will have had to struggle with the subtitles. However, Penelope's command of English has enabled her to promote the film in a way that Santiago Segura was never able to do for Torrente (despite also notching up an impressive array of bit-parts in various American movies).

Here she is promoting Almodovar's flick on some American talk show... and unlike on a BBC radio interview (sadly offline!) she doesn't have a titter at the poor "Anglo" pronunciation of the film's title which sounds more like part of the female anatomy than the Spanish verb for coming back. "Volver" pronounced as in "Re-volver"? In English? Get it??

Okay.. just watch the film clip ...

Oh, and here are a handful of reviews in English:

• The Guardian
• BBC Movies
• Metro
• Time Out
• Rotten Tomatoes (a collection of US reviews)

...and finally, an amusing guide to all the things prudish Americans could find offence with in Almodovar's latest film, at screenit.com.

Eta, not eater

Juan Ignacio "Iñaki" de Juana Chaos is what most right-minded people would call "a nasty piece of work".

A key figure in the Basque separatist and - let's not beat around the bush here - terrorist organisation Eta, de Juana Chaos was found guilty of organising (or maybe actually carrying out) various bombings in which 25 innocent people died. 25 lives meant a sentence of 3,000 years for de Juana - whose parents were not Basque and whose father was a Francoist Guardia Civil - but thanks to some odd clause in Spanish law which points out that it would be impossible for a human being to see out 3,000 years behind bars the sentence was automatically cut to a more bearable 18 years.

Less than one year per victim.

Knowing that there would be an outcry when the "man" was let out of chokey after his 18 year sentence, the government scrambled to find something else to put off de Juana's release date and found a couple of inflammatory articles he'd written for a Basque paper that were promoting terrorism, which amazingly added up to another 12 years... probably by that time another government would have to deal with the problem.

25 deaths = 18 years, 2 newspaper articles = 12 years... hmmm.

Something sounds a bit off here.

Needless to say de Juana thought so too and went on hunger strike.

The ins and outs of all this are too lengthy to detail here, but whether de Juana lives, dies, remains in prison or is set free on whatever terms will be bad for the government and only exacerbate the so-called Basque problem. Another thing that has exacerbated this problem was The Times printing pictures of de Juana Chaos "shackled" to his bed with what looked like bandages and with the physique of Victoria Beckham without the implants.

I'm certainly not going back to Tony Roma's for some time.

Still, just as Becks' missus only has herself to blame for the shape she's in, should the emaciated de Juana really be blaming the "Spanish state" for his protruding ribcage? Or should the ridiculous state of a legal system where a 3,000 year sentence becomes an 18 year one really be the focus of our anger rather than that of a hard-done-by murderous terrorist who has already done his time for the crime?

Ah, and news just in... apparently following the appointment of a government-friendly judge, de Juana's extra 12 years have been reduced to three. Compromise, perhaps?

Here's how the story was reported:

• The Times (original story)
• The Independent
• BBC News (on new reduction of his sentence)
• The Guardian (on de Juana Chaos and the peace process)

...and here's how a couple of Spain-based English -speaking bloggers gauged the Spanish reaction:

• The Big Chorizo (on how the Spanish papers saw things)
• Lavengro in Spain (on the Guardian article!)
  
  

Tragedy and mystery

Everybody loves a good old-fashioned mystery.

Whether it is Agatha Christie or Perry Mason, Jessica Fletcher or Sherlock Holmes, there's nothing quite like finding out "whodunnit".

If you've studied your trusty list of Spanish/English false friends you should know that crimes are not restricted to murder (check felony, misdemeanour, petty crime, traffic violation and other American sub-divisions), but murder and death are often the focus of crime writers and tv and Hollywood scriptwriters.

Shoplifting She Wrote doesn't really sound like a hit series and if CSI were investigating tax evasion instead of cold-blooded killings I imagine it could have been cancelled after the first series.

Which leads me to Spain's two latest mysteries, the mysterious death of the Mayor of the mountain village of Fago, and the equally mysterious death of Crown Prince Felipe's sister-in-law Erika Ortiz.

Here's what the papers said (I'll leave the speculation to them):

Erika Ortiz:

• CBS News (US)
• Monsters and Critics
• International Herald Tribune (US)
• The Independent
• The Times
  
  Mayor of Fago:
• The Guardian
• Daily Mirror
• Daily Telegraph
• International Herald Tribune (US)
• Expatica (Holland)
• ThinkSpain
  
  

Spanish people speaking English: Aznar

It's always a bit of an eye-opener to many Spanish people to hear their fellow countrymen and women speaking English, especially if those fellow countrymen and women happen to be famous. Actors, sports stars, politicians, royalty... all have varying levels of English.

Fernando Alonso speaks better English than Rafa Nadal, but despite being based in the UK for some time Alonso's English is hardly proficiency level.

Antonio Banderas has an impressive level of fluency but still has quite a strong Spanish accent.

Penelope Cruz sometimes comes unstuck with prepositions despite all those years with Tom Cruise.

Let's not mention Ana Obregón.

Ooops.

But whose English has come in for most ridicule from his fellow Spaniards? None other than that of former Prime Minister (in English you can't be a president and have a king!) Jose María Aznar.

The man who instead of giving a Stateside speech in English gave it in (supposedly) Texan-accented Spanish. The man who went on to lecture - in English! - at Georgetown University.

The man who once had to ask King Juan Carlos to be his interpreter.

What follows is a fascinating interview - in English - that appeared on one of the BBC's international channels in July 2006. Unlike the sycophantic interviews Aznar conceded to PP-friendly channels in the past this interview pulls no punches.

His English seems to have improved since the early days of his friendship with Bush, and he seems to have less of a strong Spanish accent than in the past.

Pity that he has replaced it with a French one.

Also notable is the way that he has also used Bush as a model for his English... depite the BBC interviewer's referring to the Basque separatist terrorist organisation as ETA (a one-word acronym - pronounced as in Spanish), Aznar insists on calling it E.T.A. (as Bush did following the March 11th attacks). I wonder if he also refers to the former Spanish capital as To-leeee-doh when speaking English.

Watch the body language too!

Watch him squirm!!


(Part One)

(Part Two)

(Part Three)

Now let's see if I can find a clip of Zapatero trying to speak English!

Problems in class

Oh Brother! Jade Goody becomes a household name in India

Is classism the new racism in Britain?

Over the past few weeks the British tabloid press (and the quality press!) has worked itself into a frenzy regarding a series of spats in TV's Celebrity Big Brother house between various British D-list celebrity housemates (notably one Jade Goody) and Indian housemate Shilpa Shetty, a Bollywood film star. Actually, a spat is probably the wrong word, as it normally involves attacks from both sides, not principally victimization of one party alone. The incident was made a little more painful for both victim and viewer when racist insults peppered the row. It was suggested that Shetty "couldn't speak English properly", should "go back home" and "visit the slums". Stronger language was also used, as documented by "family newspaper" the News of the World in one of their post-eviction Jade-baiting interviews.

Goody's mother (a self confessed petty crook and sometime drug abuser) - the curiously spelt Jackiey - also refused to pronounce Shetty's name correctly and insisted on calling her "the Indian" and "Princess".


Slanging matches between contestants in "reality shows" (and between Big Brother contestants in particular) is, of course, nothing new, and some cynics think that they are practically encouraged by TV producers in a bid for better ratings. Anyone who watched the last series of Gran Hermano in Spain will also have noticed a racist, sexist bigot among the contestants, but bar presenter Mercedes Milá and a few regulars on the daytime chat shows, most of Spain was not bothered, and the foul mouth of one Dani Rubio was not debated in parliament. Maybe Zapatero and Rajoy didn't want their own slanging match to be overshadowed.

Some commentators have pointed out that more than (or in addition to) racism, the "Jade vs Shilpa" incident smacked of classism. Whereas Shilpa Shetty was seen to be a polite, discreet, well-brought up young lady (and a good actress in all senses of the word) Jade Goody came across as an ignorant, rude, moody "mouthy bird".

Classy versus brassy.

Smart versus tart.

Whether Shilpa and Jade epitomise India or Britain is debatable, but an amusing reversal of the old colonialist (and racist) cliché was there for all to see - the well-spoken, intelligent and literate Indian triumphing over the primitive ignorance of the English.

Many also felt that Jade and her fellow "tormentors" were typical of 21st century British youth: an embarrassment.

It was also interesting that the three winners - fading Bollywood star Shetty, ex A-Team actor Dirk "Face" Benedict and has-been pop star (and brother of Michael) Jermaine Jackson - were all foreigners. The three contestants who were the least offensive were not British, but were the British audiences' favourites.

While Jade Goody is now Britain's number one social pariah.

Here's what the papers said about the racism/classism debate that was a fallout from the CBB episode:

• BBC News on Britain's class divide


• The Observer on Britain's class divide


• The Daily Telegraph on Jade Goody and "class hatred"


• The Sun attempts to address racism and classism post-BigBrother


• Anorak on the Sun's attempt to address racism and classism post-Big Brother


• The Los Angeles Times on Celebrity BB and its race/class repercussions
  

Size matters

No-one who has ever caught a glimpse of a fashion show since the mid-1990's onwards could deny the ubiquity of the scrawny model. Skinny legs, thin arms, drawn features and even visible ribs (more or less) seemed to be pre-requisites for catwalk models in this day and age. Just look at the state of the lass on the right...

Some called it heroin chic, with models in fashion mags and fashion shows looking more like junkies than objects of lust. Over the years many critics claimed these "modern" standards of beauty were responsible for an increase in eating disorders such as anorexia or bulimia and that the lives of many fashion-conscious young women (and the models themselves) were being put at risk.

A lot was said about this but nothing was actually done until 2006, when a few bright sparks at Madrid's Cibeles Fashion Week thought it would be a good idea to ban the thinner models from the catwalk. However, this was only after one model who had been due to appear died after living off a diet of lettuce leaves and Diet Coke for several months. Unbeknown to the Brazilian model, Armani's people had already whispered amongst themselves that the waif-like creature was "too skinny".

However, the Madrid catwalk ban on emaciated models opened up a new can of worms: can a local authority put limits on artistic expression? Fashion designers are essentially artists and see their work - clothes and shows - as artistic creations. Can local councils or governments dictate - or essentially censor - an artist's work? Those behind Milan's fashion week seem to think that creative freedom of expression is more important than any knock-on effects like anorexia, bulimia or death (although a subsequent, more logical view has been adopted by the Italian industry, albeit a vague one). Even London Fashion Week seemed reluctant to follow Madrid's lead, despite the worries of MP Tessa Jowell, probably fearing accusations of kow-towing to the nanny state.

The latest news from Madrid is that the big boys of high street fashion in Spain have agreed to standardise their previously all-over-the-place sizing policy, so a size 38 in Zara will be the same size as a size 38 in Mango or Bershka or Massimo Dutti or wherever. Some reports focus on the proposed standardisation for clothes sizes while others choose to focus on the plans to readjust the unnatural measurements of the original fashion model: the showroom dummy (or mannequin).

Here's how the story ran around the English-speaking world:

• BBC News
• The Guardian
• The Times (spot comical mis-spelling of Spanish MP's name...)
• San Jose Mercury News (US)
• CBS News (US)

I predict a riot

A Madrid suburb best known for a tacky Madonna-imitating transvestite and an Ikea has hit the headlines due to a ruck between Spanish locals and Latinos.

Most reports seem to agree that the conflict took place following an argument over a basketball court "occupied" by a group of Latinos, and that this spiralled into a riot between Spaniards and immigrants, about 1,000 or so young people (1,000 Spaniards, the figures for the Latinos are unclear), and that the whole thing had been planned over the internet. Most reports also detail the various weapons used from knives and knuckledusters to guns and even swords(!)... but other details seem to vary depending on where you read the report.

Some sources refer to the object of the locals' ire as being Dominicans, others say they were Latin Kings, some call it a race riot while others say it was a protest against "delinquents" (fight fire with fire, eh?). Local politicians quoted in Spanish papers say that there have been no Latin Kings in Madrid for six months, while the BBC say that Latin Kings are "active" in Alcorcon.

I'll let you make your own minds up about whether this fracas is just a one-off or the tip of the iceberg... here is how the story was reported around the English-speaking world.

• BBC News
• Reuters UK
• Typically Spanish (Spain)
• ThinkSpain (Spain)
• International Herald Tribune (USA)
• Monsters and Critics
• Expatica (Holland)
• Upside Down World
• Vivir Latino (in English!)

You can also listen to a bizarre computer generated recording of the Herald Tribune story linked to above here, where Alcorcón is pronounced Al Cork'n.

Capital letters

Hello and welcome to the blog that isn't a blog really.

For those of you scratching your heads and wondering why words like January and British are written without capital letters in some of the headings on this blog after teachers like myself have persistently drummed into your heads that those capitals are necessary and that "English isn't Spanish" and so on, let me just explain that this is done for stylistic effect (just ask E.E. Cummings*).

A bit like me signing off at the end of each post in all lower-case letters.

I didn't program the template HTML, that's how it comes! It also looks that bit "cooler" (apparently) even though it's technically wrong. A bit like all those Spanish people with "ñ"s in their names that have to change then to "n"s or "ny" or whatever on their email addresses.

Wrong, but tolerated due to technical limitations.

But don't ever think of doing it on a piece of written work though.

Or in a letter.

Or even in an email.

Because what might look cool to some people in a certain place looks a bit silly to others.

Ever see all those funny text messages written at the bottom of the screen during those afternoon television shows?

Then try and imagine they were written by a retired army general and not a spotty teenager.

*P.S. : I wouldn't seriously recommend asking E.E. Cummings... he's dead, you know. An ex-poet, he has ceased to be... etc. etc.