to take someone at his/her word - ?
Hola a todos!
I'm really stuck with this one. There is a sort of special meaning in English that I'm not sure I can render in Spanish with what I've found. The idea is that someone has offered to take care of another person's dog, so they take her at her word, meaning that they want to sort of grab the opportunity before she has a chance to change her mind, and that they are taking her literally, and sort of hoping that she really means it and won't back out, like it's almost too good to believe.
I have found the expression creer en la palabra de alguien, but I'm not sure if this just doesn't mean to believe them, not necessarily to grab the opportunity like it does in English.
On the Real Academia site, I find so many things that sound sort of possible that I'm really confused, like coger la palabra, or just phrases without a verb like palabra de rey, palabras de buena crianza, palabras de oráculo, santa palabra, etc., but I've no idea how you'd fit those into the sentence I need: She offered to take care of the dog, so we took her at her word.
Can anyone help with that?:confused:
Thanks for any assistance,
Diane
Re: to take someone at his/her word - ?
La expresión que usamos en la Argentina es "te/le tomo/tomamos la palabra" y significa exactamente lo que tú dices. No la encontré en el diccionario de la RAE, pero figuran varios casos de España, Argentina y México en el Corpus del Español Actual de esa misma institución:
Quote:
"- Me parece que yo aquí estoy de sobra -dijo, abriendo el paquete-. Ah, estupendo. Oye, Daniel, dile a tu padre que ando buscando un libro titulado Matamoros: cartas de juventud desde Ceuta, de Francisco Franco Bahamonde, con prólogo y anotaciones de Pemán.
- Délo por hecho. Le decimos algo en un par de semanas.
- Te tomo la palabra, y me voy ya pitando que me esperan treinta y dos mentes en blanco."
"La sombra del viento", Carlos Ruiz Zafón, España, 2001
"- Creí que le tenía miedo a las fieras.
- Usted ha dicho sabiamente que es un miedo erróneo. Le tomo la palabra y le repito que me tendrá muy pronto en Kenya, de visita. Verá qué dócil soy para las excursiones."
"La octava maravilla", Vlady Kociancich, 1982, Argentina
Re: to take someone at his/her word - ?
Coincido con aleCcowaN.
Creo que la mejor opción que tenemos en español es "tomar la palabra".
Aquí encontré esto en Wiktionary:
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tomar_la_palabra
Si necesitas más ayuda por favor contáctame. Gracias.
Re: to take someone at his/her word - ?
Many thanks to both of you, aleCcowaN and Laurinha - excellent responses with examples to help me, and it sounds like exactly what I needed, just that shade of meaning I was looking for!
Un millón de gracias,
Diane
