English base stiff

[Ricardo Cid]

Echo de menos esta entrada:
working stiff = trabajador común, (ES) currito = someone who does an ordinary job that is often not very well paid.
Executives at City Hall are earning around three times more than the working stiffs.
Los ejecutivos del Ayuntamiento están ganando unas tres veces más que los trabajadores comunes.

 

[DrD]

Hello,

Thank you for your message. We already have this sense of stiff in the English base. Here it is as it appears in the English to Spanish dictionary:

stiff n	US, slang (ordinary man) (coloquial)	tipo nm
	(ES)	tío nm
		fulano nm
	Joe's a pretty decent stiff when you get to know him.
	Joe es un tipo decente una vez que lo conoces.

From an English perspective, I would say that putting 'working' in front of 'stiff', just describes what kind of 'stiff' this is (one who works, and as a stiff is an ordinary man, then he would have an ordinary job). However, I can take an educated guess that your proposed translation would literally translate back into English as 'ordinary worker', so I'll check in with our Spanish team on this.

@n.ares, what do you think? Do you need to have 'working stiff' as a compound or can you do something with the existing entry? I think this is one that's not strictly a compound from our point of view, but I'm happy to add it if it's needed from a translation point of view.

 

[n.ares]

@n.ares, what do you think? Do you need to have 'working stiff' as a compound or can you do something with the existing entry? I think this is one that's not strictly a compound from our point of view, but I'm happy to add it if it's needed from a translation point of view.

Hi @DrD. Thanks for asking. I think we should definitely have a separate entry for working stiff. This expression seems to be very common and I can't think of a clear way to add a translation for it in the sense that you quoted under stiff. Besides, working stiff has its own entry in other dictionaries (see Cambridge), so maybe it does have a specific nuance that isn't really covered by the sum of its parts.

 

[DrD]

OK - thank you. I've added it.