The secrets behind the curious account that RAE uses on Twitter to answer questions – 15/05/2019

Francisco wants to know if the names of the months and days of the week must be capitalized. Serafin asks if the adverb "maybe" can also be written "maybe". Glenda does not know if it is written "environment" or "environment". And Ariel asks if the correct thing is "Wherever you are" or "Wherever you are". Every day, six philologists specialized in normative Castilian answer hundreds of doubts about the correct use of the language that Twitter users send to the account of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE). Everything is there: questions of spelling and prosody to the questions of morphology or syntactic confusion. "Nothing linguistic is foreign to us," he says. Clarin Elena Hernández Gómez, director of the "Spanish al día" department of the RAE, is about to reveal in Madrid the secrets of an account that speaks (correctly, of course).

It's been more than ten years since she obtained her BA in Hispanic Philology from the Complutense University of Madrid when Hernández Gómez became head of this area of ​​the Academy dedicated to helping Spanish speakers. Then the Internet was a choice for a few and the questions were sent by filling out an online form. It was in 1998. Twenty years later, technology was expanding the possibilities of arrival: now, the explanations are disseminated by the network in all possible ways. So if the daily consultations were 250 in 2017, 300 in 2018 and more than 500 last March. A barrage of questions.

However, this is not the only thing they do. The same six people who explain, recommend and correct the tweeters are also responsible for the first edition of the Panhispanic Dictionary of Doubts (Santillana, 2005), the Spelling of the Spanish language (Espasa, 2010) and the Basic spelling of the Spanish language (Espasa, 2012). That's why they are not intimidated when the trolls seek to make them walk on the stick.

In February of this year, the user Lucio Ferreyra sent them, with the hashtag #RAEconsultas this doubt: "Hello @RAEinforma the following is a very common issue among us Twitter users.We would like to know if "I invite you to my house to watch Netflix" is written with Go with J. Thank you so much. "The answer was:" Whatever its meaning, the verb "to take" is written with "g" the way the sound [j] go before 'e', ​​i ': to catch, I chose; and with & # 39; j & # 39; the way this sound goes before "," or "lame, take." hilarious spelling, of the highest academic rigor, had in just a few hours nearly 14 thousand republications and more than 43,200 "I like it". And it was not the first time.

"Our rule is to respond to everything with the maximum of education and without ever getting into provocations or polemics with the consultants." Our answers are always of a linguistic nature, without avoiding in some cases a nice wink or a touch of subtle humor always welcomed by users", Elena Hernández Gómez points in an email to Clarin. He adds: "We respond even when we can not offer an answer because the question asked goes beyond the limits set for the service.We think this is a sign of respect for our consultants."

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Among the answers they do not offer are the slogans that dozens of students take home as homework. The RAE does not solve the parsing nor the list of synonyms requested by the spanish teacher. They could not do it even if they wanted to, because 450 daily doubts are scandalous: "Fortunately, many questions are repeated," explains Hernández Gómez. In these cases, a corpus of answers type is already recorded.

The philologist and director of the "Spanish al día" department of RAE has been working with the same team of professionals for more than three decades. Firstly, at the lexicography seminar of the Royal Academy of Spain, in 1988, under the direction of the academic Manuel Seco, as editor-in-chief of Historical dictionary of the Spanish language. Then he was part of the technical team of Dictionary of current spanish (DEA), by Seco, Andrés and Ramos (Aguilar, 1999). Later she co-wrote the Practical guide of current spanish. A short dictionary of doubts and difficulties (Espasa-Calpe, 1999). Hernández Gómez is also the author of the academic part of the book What madness, literature!, published by the SM publishing house in the El Barco collection of Vapor Saber.

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Doubts that appear the most

In this way, 30 years ago, the specialist navigate the waters of a language always complex. "If you ask me five recurring questions, here is my selection:

1. Is the capitalization verified?
2. Should the "solo" adverb and demonstrative pronouns be graphically accentuated?
3. Is the woman "president" valid?
4. Is it called "printed" or "printed"?
5. The name "heat" is masculine or feminine? "

These are all common questions that can not always be clarified in a few characters. As they do? "For over thirty years we have been attending the Royal Spanish Academy's consultation service, well before opening our Twitter channel, we have accumulated a wealth of experience and extensive knowledge of the standard that governs the correct use of Spanish today. This knowledge is what allows us to decant the right answer in a limited number of caratars"He explains.

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And when the limits do not reach, then "there are answers that require two or three consecutive tweets like a thread"In fact, some specialized cases receive more attention:" When we want to offer the explanation that underlies our recommendation for use, or for more complex problems that clearly exceed the limits of a tweet, we include links or files attached, which allows consultants to expand the information they receive. "

– Many times, ingenious or amusing answers have become news. How does this notoriety affect the team of specialists working on the @RAEinforma account on Twitter?

-We are pleased to see that our work is having an impact on the community of speakers, serving who we are. It is always good to talk about language issues, as this allows more people to know the recommendations for use and, therefore, improve their use of the language. Moreover, this impact always means that more people know the existence of our service and can use it to solve their doubts.

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-The account has one million three hundred and fifty thousand followers and followers. Does this type of information influence the press on the number of followers?

-Without a doubt. Whenever our response became viral and reached the media, we witnessed a very significant increase in the number of subscribers. something new that our account earns on a daily basis, which is usually around 450. In February, for example, the number of new subscribers we earned each day was nearly 2,600 because of our response to the feminine question. "Brown" had an unexpected repercussion.

By the way, for Serafin, "maybe" and "maybe" are two valid forms and the same goes for "environment" and "environment", so that Glenda does not doubt. And for Ariel's doubt, the RAE explains: "To indicate the state or situation (" place where "), the use of the preposition" in "in front of" the "where" is optional, although, usually there is no antecedent. the absence of preposition is more common: Place it where you want / Place it where you want" Of course, put it where you want, but let it be correct.

And the answers?

Is the capitalization verified?

Capital letters they should be written with a tilde it's up to them to take a tilde according to the Spanish accentuation rules, that it's words written in capital letters in their entirety or capital letters. :
His son calls Angel.
ATTENTION PLEASE.
The Royal Spanish Academy has never established a contrary rule.
Uppercase graphic emphasis is not optional, but mandatoryand it affects any type of text. The only uppercase capital letters are those that are part of the initials; thus, the CIA (acronym for the English Central Intelligence Agency) does not carry a tilde, although the hiatus between the tonic closed vowel and the unaccented open vowel would require, according to the accentuation rules, to label the i.

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Can the adverb "alone" and the demonstrative pronouns be accentuated graphically?

The word alone, both when it is adverb and equal only (I only had a few pieces in my pocket) as if it is an adjective (I do not like being alone), as well as demonstratives this one, it and that one, with their feminine and plural, function as pronouns (This is silly; I want it) or as determinants (Awhat types, The girl who) they must not be accented according to the general rules of accentuationeither because they are simple two-ended words ending in a vowel or -s, well, in the case of that oneto be sharp and end with a consonant different from n or s.

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Is the woman "president" valid?

For the feminine of "presidente" the forms "president" and "president" are valid. Although "president" can be used as a common genre ("president"), it is better today to use the "president" feminine, documented in Spanish since the 15th century and inscribed in the academic dictionary since 1803. "After the event, he was not informed that religion was very vain and secular and fell in love with the laity and all his predecessors …" (a1448 Francesc Eiximenis donuts book).

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Is it called "printed" or "printed"?

The only common language verbs have two participles, one regular and the other irregular, are printed (printed / printed), fried (fried / fried) and provided (provided / provided), with their respective derivatives. . The two participles they can be used interchangeably in the formation of compound times and periphrastic pbadive, although the preference for one or the other form varies in each case (see Panhispanic Dictionary of Doubts, print s / v, fry, provide): We have printed Twenty copies / They had printed the copies on photographic paper.
We had everything we needed / We had provided many provisions.
The empanadillas should be fried two hours before / never an egg has been fried.

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The name "heat"Is it a man or a woman?

In current Spanish culture, "heat" is a masculine noun ("heat"). However, the use in female ("heat"), normal in medieval and clbadical Spanish, is not branded in many parts of southern Spain and America.