GLOSSARY ENTRY (DERIVED FROM QUESTION BELOW) | ||||||
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23:24 Jul 12, 2015 |
Spanish to English translations [PRO] Media / Multimedia / Current Events | |||||||
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| Selected response from: Charles Davis Spain Local time: 10:52 | ||||||
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Discussion entries: 3 | |
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have taken the moral high ground over Explanation: It's actually "lavarse la cara con". I agree it's hard to get a handle on this, but I think the idea of the expression is using something to make you look good; to say that the media have "washed their faces with" Trump amounts to saying that their treatment of his odious rants has been such as to make themselves look better, in the sense of morally superior, with the implication of having done so opportunistically and perhaps not altogether honestly. So I suspect what it amounts to is what you might call "taking the moral high ground". Here are a couple of Mexican uses of the expression that seem to me to point in this direction: "Desafortunadamente en este difícil momento no han faltado los políticos oportunistas pretendiendo lavarse la cara con un simple “deslinde” o colgarse de la tragedia para tratar de desestabilizar al gobierno de Enrique Peña Nieto." http://www.colloqui.org/colloqui/2014/11/9/renunciara-pea-ni... Peña Nieto's in difficulties, so some have tried to whitewash their own image by detaching themselves from him. "El Partido Verde Ecologista de México (PVEM) tiene suficiente dinero para realizar campañas, pese a la "bocanada de multas" que representan una "campaña brutal" contra ese instituto político, sostuvo su vocero nacional, Arturo Escobar y Vega. El Instituto Nacional Electoral (INE) impuso una nueva multa al PVEM por 322.4 millones de pesos, por recibir aportaciones prohibidas para sus campañas de difusión. [...] Arturo Escobar acusó a algunos consejeros electorales de querer "lavarse la cara" con el PVEM." http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2015/05/15/politica/014n4pol He's accusing them of victimising the PVEM to make themselves look good. -------------------------------------------------- Note added at 32 mins (2015-07-12 23:56:55 GMT) -------------------------------------------------- According to my reading, the more literal meaning would something like "have used Trump to improve their own image". |
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