cambiadas de signo

English translation: turned / stood on their heads

GLOSSARY ENTRY (DERIVED FROM QUESTION BELOW)
Spanish term or phrase:cambiadas de signo
English translation:turned / stood on their heads
Entered by: Charles Davis

17:34 Apr 13, 2016
Spanish to English translations [PRO]
Art/Literary - Linguistics
Spanish term or phrase: cambiadas de signo
THis is from a text by an Argentine theorist:

Y en eso uno puede volver al libro El nuevo espíritu del capitalismo, de Boltanski y Chiapello: todas las banderas de la izquierda o de la crítica artística de izquierda apropiadas y cambiadas de signo.

It seems like a specific use, something that "meanings turned around"

Thanks
Wendy Gosselin
Argentina
Local time: 12:57
turned / stood on their heads
Explanation:
"cambiar de signo" is a mathematical metaphor based on the idea of a change of sign, whereby positive values become negative and vice versa (+1 becomes -1 and -1 becomes +1). It means that leftist positions "han sido cambiadas de signo", "have had their sign changed", that is, been changed from positive to negative or negative to positive; they've been inverted, rather like the idea of a mirror image. Actually, the idea that right and left and simply the inverse of each other is quite old.

I think "turned on their heads" or "stood on their heads" would fit quite well here:

"stand/turn something on its head
to make an idea or belief the opposite of what it was before
The first feminists simply took the accepted view that men were superior to women and turned it on its head."
http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/stand on its head

The example in this definition is pretty close to what your author's talking about.

Of course you could also use "inverted", "turned back to front", or any other expression that implies reversal.

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Note added at 1 hr (2016-04-13 19:22:41 GMT)
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Actually "cambiar de signo" can be used more loosely than this, rather than its strict mathematical but it always implies radical transformation:

"el sentido y alcance del protagonismo estatal va a cambiar de signo, va a ser totalmente diferente"
https://www.google.es/search?num=100&q="cambiar de signo"&oq...

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Note added at 2 hrs (2016-04-13 19:36:59 GMT)
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An example or two from academic texts to illustrate this expression:

"Lately, all this has changed, and the politics of employing the term
culture have been stood on their head."
https://www.academia.edu/961669/An_Anthropology_Made_Safe_fo...

"In this reformed agenda, the so-called principles of constitutionalism must be stood on their head as they are applied to the governance institutions of the village."
https://books.google.es/books?id=8NGjyJ9HEoQC&pg=PA40&lpg=PA...
Selected response from:

Charles Davis
Spain
Local time: 16:57
Grading comment
Selected automatically based on peer agreement.
4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer



Summary of answers provided
4 +3turned / stood on their heads
Charles Davis
4 +1traduced
neilmac
4at the other end of the scale
andyfergu
4inverted
Francois Boye
4turned upside-down
Muriel Vasconcellos


  

Answers


36 mins   confidence: Answerer confidence 4/5Answerer confidence 4/5
at the other end of the scale


Explanation:
cambiadas de signo refers to the shift from political left to the right

andyfergu
Spain
Local time: 16:57
Specializes in field
Native speaker of: Native in EnglishEnglish, Native in SpanishSpanish
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30 mins   confidence: Answerer confidence 4/5Answerer confidence 4/5 peer agreement (net): +1
traduced


Explanation:
= their meanings betrayed/traduced/inverted/misappropriated/turned around...

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Note added at 31 mins (2016-04-13 18:06:01 GMT)
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"...it is to have one's own sacred lore appropriated and traduced"...
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/books/the-fake-with-the...

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Note added at 32 mins (2016-04-13 18:07:01 GMT)
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"there's little if any music of this kind around today, the dynamics and scope of hard rock having long since been appropriated and traduced by all manner of gurning, hair-metal stadium chumps…"

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Note added at 33 mins (2016-04-13 18:07:26 GMT)
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http://blogcritics.org/rocket-from-the-tombs/

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Note added at 40 mins (2016-04-13 18:14:49 GMT)
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In fact, instead of "appropriated and traduced" I might consider the more emotive "hijacked and traduced", as in this excerpt:
"...the ethos of the Jarrow March has been hijacked and traduced by ..."
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2000/nov/12/oil.comment

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Note added at 41 mins (2016-04-13 18:15:50 GMT)
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Or here: "it is saddening to see long held precepts hijacked and traduced,..."
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2001-12-27/news...

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Note added at 42 mins (2016-04-13 18:17:03 GMT)
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Trending topic: "ISIS have nothing to do with their kind of 'moderate' Islam which has been hijacked and traduced by this uniquely savage and malicious misrepresentation..."
http://themuslimfaculty.org/radicalisation-ideological-chime...


    Reference: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/traduce
    Reference: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/traduce
neilmac
Spain
Local time: 16:57
Native speaker of: Native in EnglishEnglish
PRO pts in category: 32

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
agree  MarinaM
7 hrs

neutral  Charles Davis: Traduced would mean violated or betrayed. That may be the author's opinion, but if he had wanted to make it explicit there are other words he could have used. This expression is not in itself so pejorative, I feel.
13 hrs
  -> Taking lefty things and making them righty is a sort of betrayal, n'est ce pas? Like Rajoy growing dreads...
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1 hr   confidence: Answerer confidence 4/5Answerer confidence 4/5 peer agreement (net): +3
turned / stood on their heads


Explanation:
"cambiar de signo" is a mathematical metaphor based on the idea of a change of sign, whereby positive values become negative and vice versa (+1 becomes -1 and -1 becomes +1). It means that leftist positions "han sido cambiadas de signo", "have had their sign changed", that is, been changed from positive to negative or negative to positive; they've been inverted, rather like the idea of a mirror image. Actually, the idea that right and left and simply the inverse of each other is quite old.

I think "turned on their heads" or "stood on their heads" would fit quite well here:

"stand/turn something on its head
to make an idea or belief the opposite of what it was before
The first feminists simply took the accepted view that men were superior to women and turned it on its head."
http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/stand on its head

The example in this definition is pretty close to what your author's talking about.

Of course you could also use "inverted", "turned back to front", or any other expression that implies reversal.

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 1 hr (2016-04-13 19:22:41 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

Actually "cambiar de signo" can be used more loosely than this, rather than its strict mathematical but it always implies radical transformation:

"el sentido y alcance del protagonismo estatal va a cambiar de signo, va a ser totalmente diferente"
https://www.google.es/search?num=100&q="cambiar de signo"&oq...

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 2 hrs (2016-04-13 19:36:59 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

An example or two from academic texts to illustrate this expression:

"Lately, all this has changed, and the politics of employing the term
culture have been stood on their head."
https://www.academia.edu/961669/An_Anthropology_Made_Safe_fo...

"In this reformed agenda, the so-called principles of constitutionalism must be stood on their head as they are applied to the governance institutions of the village."
https://books.google.es/books?id=8NGjyJ9HEoQC&pg=PA40&lpg=PA...

Charles Davis
Spain
Local time: 16:57
Works in field
Native speaker of: English
PRO pts in category: 59
Grading comment
Selected automatically based on peer agreement.

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
agree  Denis Zabelin: logical and convincing
2 hrs
  -> Thanks a lot, sidewinder :)

agree  Vika Lex
3 hrs
  -> Thanks, Vika :)

agree  Karen Vincent-Jones (X)
3 days 20 hrs
  -> Thank you, Karen :)
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3 hrs   confidence: Answerer confidence 4/5Answerer confidence 4/5
inverted


Explanation:
change in direction and meaning

Francois Boye
United States
Local time: 11:57
Native speaker of: Native in FrenchFrench
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12 hrs   confidence: Answerer confidence 4/5Answerer confidence 4/5
turned upside-down


Explanation:
This is how we say it in the US at least.

Half a million hits. Examples:

**The Principle of Equality Turned Upside Down** - European ...
www.europeandignitywatch.org/.../the-principle-of-equality-...
In the process of becoming a major principle of political and legal thinking, its meaning has become confused with an equality of moral choices, and a statistical ...

www.signavio.com/.../ovum-business-process-management-foru....
Signavio
Oct 22, 2015 - Achieving success by ** thinking differently”. ... can be turned upside down to transform the efficiency and collaborative success of a company.**

m.goodreturns.co.nz/article/.../thinking-on-dims-turned-upside-down.html
**Thinking on DIMS turned upside down. 22 Nov, 6:52am by Susan Edmunds. Advisers will need to completely reverse the way they think about “personalised” ...**



Muriel Vasconcellos
United States
Local time: 08:57
Specializes in field
Native speaker of: Native in EnglishEnglish
PRO pts in category: 120
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