prebenda

11:04 Jun 26, 2018 

No, thank you, Chema! It's always a real pleasure to discuss things with you and be made to think harder.

10:57 Jun 26, 2018 

I think you've got it!
Perks and privileges sounds perfect here! -to me at least ;)
With adding privileges I think you close the circle around the original prebendas in this context.
And so perks and privileges for prebendas and cronyism for canonjía.
Good job!
I am fully satisfied with that! :)))
Thank you so much for the trip, Charles!!

10:19 Jun 26, 2018 

Maybe "perks" would be best after all; it can mean both "an extra payment or benefit that you get in your job" and more generally "a benefit or advantage that you get from a situation". Perhaps "perks and privileges"?

10:05 Jun 26, 2018 

As per dictionary, venal/venality sounds a bit too harsh as the term seems inequivocally related to bribery or corruption. Prebenda might fall in that category but although a negative term it relates to unethical behaviour more so than to an illegal one. Nest feathering might work here though.
As for cronyism I think it is definitely the right term for canonjía in the given context.

07:32 Jun 26, 2018 

I have to admit it's difficult to argue with what you say about "prebendas". Even the notaría might be not so much a job as a negotiable asset, which the recipient could turn into cash.

Maybe "venality" would express the "prebendas" part, in a fairly high register. A more colloquial term that occurs to me is "nest-feathering":

"feather (one's) own nest
To utilize one's position at work for one's own monetary gain."
https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/feather your own nest

" Nest Feathering
Here's a plea to all government officials: Come up with a better reason to justify high public-sector salaries and benefits."
http://www.governing.com/blogs/view/Nest-Feathering.html

And for the canonjías part, intepreting it as referring to jobs, I keep coming back to "cronyism":

"Cronyism is the practice of partiality in awarding jobs and other advantages to friends, family relatives or trusted colleagues, especially in politics and between politicians and supportive organizations. For instance, this includes appointing "cronies" to positions of authority, regardless of their qualifications."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cronyism

23:14 Jun 25, 2018 

Hi Charles,
As you can surely notice your previous example of prebendas ("como prebenda política") can be perfectly read as a (non-ethical) benefit; recibió la notaría como "regalo/premio/pago" político. As for the particular use of prebendas and canonjías here - una coalición de prebendas; una coalición de canonjías- my own reading is to interpret that as "(formar) una coalición para conseguir prebendas [beneficios, regalías, ventajas]; una coalición para conseguir canonjías [para hacerse con puestos en los que no hacer nada]. I feel you might be right though in reading the counterbalance of canonjía not in work/responsibility but in choosing the best people, and so the stress of canonjía would then be that of cronyism, which makes perfect sense.

And so, yes, I think you are definitely right about cronyism / canonjía; jobs for the boys.
As for prebendas I am quite sure there is no other reading here than as non-ethical regalos/beneficios/ventajas. It is up to you though to tell me the best word or expression to convey that in English! ;)
Saludos!

21:46 Jun 25, 2018 

However, although it may be true that "prebendas" means benefits, financial or otherwise, and "canonjías" means jobs, I think the context clearly implies that the key point is cronyism: it's not a question of the nature of the job (and a position in government is hardly a sinecure); it's more a question of who gets it. I am pretty sure Duque is referring to giving jobs to political friends rather than to the best-qualified candidate. So I still feel "cronyism" or "jobs for the boys" best capture what is meant here, though both are more colloquial than the original.

21:43 Jun 25, 2018 

You may be right. I don't entirely agree with your premise; you can find "prebenda" applied to jobs as well as perks or benefits, and "canonjía" applied to perks or benefits as well as jobs. I still maintain that they are often (I would say usually) used synonymously; see my Mexican example, where exactly the same favour is called a "prebenda" in the headline and a "canonjía" in the body text, and both terms refer to something that is neither a job nor a perk. But if we look specifically at Colombian usage, it's quite true that "prebenda" usually means some kind of benefit. A "dádiva o prebenda" in healthcare is basically a bribe given by pharmaceutical companies to doctors, for example:
https://www.minsalud.gov.co/comunicadosPrensa/Documents/Borr...

Though it can also be a "plum job":

"Ex senador Alirio Villamizar niega haber recibido una notaria como prebenda política."
http://caracol.com.co/programa/2010/03/09/noticiero_del_medi...

(continued in next post)

14:09 Jun 25, 2018 

That being said I might think of using perks for prebendas and maybe sinecure for canonjías. It must be noted that the tone of the original is rather formal although understandable. And that the use of canonjías seems to stress here the lack of an assumed function or responsibility more than the inner ease of the job itself.

13:48 Jun 25, 2018 

"Traduciendo" así el párrafo en cuestión;
[Acá nunca se pensó en una coalición de prebendas y mucho menos de canonjías, aquí se trató siempre de respaldar un programa y por eso hoy puedo...]

Nosotros no pensamos en crear una coalición política para obtener beneficios o ventajas (inmerecidos) y mucho menos para ocupar un puesto sin asumir las responsabilidades inherentes al mismo; nosotros planteamos formar una coalición para trabajar responsablemente en la construcción y desarrollo político de un programa de gobierno y por eso...

No asumir la responsabilidad política de trabajar y de asumir las responsabilidades propias del cargo es considerado así por Duque más grave que la simple obtención de un lucro, beneficio o regalía por mor del puesto que uno ocupa -o por mor del favor de quien lo ocupa.

En fin, ¡espero que os sirva!
¡si acaso para continuar con un interesantísimo debate!
;)

Saludos varios!

13:44 Jun 25, 2018 

Creo que el sentido de prebendas y canonjías está en realidad perfectamente diferenciado en origen en este caso; prebendas alude (¡a pesar del DRAE!) a beneficios o ventajas, en tanto que indebidos o inmerecidos, que se podrían pretender obtener por el simple hecho de formar parte de una coalición de gobierno. Ver por ejemplo el revelador artículo recomendado por la Fundeu sobre el sentido de "prebendas";

[Del Diccionario Clave:] [despectivo] Beneficio, favor o ventaja concedidos de forma arbitraria y no por méritos propios o por el esfuerzo realizado: Esos políticos corruptos conceden prebendas a sus amigos».
https://www.fundeu.es/noticia/la-palabra-prebenda-5154/

Canonjías en cambio alude a conseguir puestos de renombre donde no hacer nada, sin responsabilidades asumidas. Se contrapone así la idea de canonjía al de responsabilidad y trabajo efectivo; "aquí se trató siempre de respaldar un programa", esto es, de trabajar (políticamente) con responsabilidad.

(...)

02:43 Jun 25, 2018 

...a metaphor such as this (with plums and tree) may be part of an 'in-kind compensation' strategy, where a different effect is produced, in this case a 'metaphor' compensating for the loss in the allusion to Catholicism. Nice suggestions, Charles. Feel free to post that (metaphor-rich) pairing yourself, as an additional option. As you (and Lorena) know better than most, it's not all about the KudoZ. Cheers :-)

01:30 Jun 25, 2018 

"Plum job" is an expression used in British English too, though not specifically in political contexts; it really implies a very good, very attractive job.

But in the US a "political plum" is apparently "an appointive job, especially a sinecure", according to William Safire in Safire's Political Dictionary, where he also cites the expression "shaking the plum tree", coined in the nineteenth century, and later references to "the political plum tree". He even says that the published list of appointive positions is informally called the "Plum Book".
https://books.google.es/books?id=Dt3QCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA546

Maybe you could do something with "political plums" and "the top of the tree"?

01:19 Jun 25, 2018 

...top-of-the-hierarchy abuse, hence my suggestion 'plum appointments' with 'appointments' often reserved for ambassadorships and cabinet-level posts.

00:18 Jun 25, 2018 

Whatever bilingual dictionaries may say, neither "prebendas" nor "canonjías" necessarily means "perks", though both can mean that. The DLE defines both as lucrative ("cushy") jobs, or sinecures.

00:08 Jun 25, 2018 

@ Asker

Private companies provide sometimes nice perks to their executives, but they cannot afford to create cushy jobs if they face competition.

Governments, on the contrary, create cushy jobs to reward the party members and financial contributors to the party's victory at the polls.

Perks in the public service are associated with specific positions or professions or agencies.

23:25 Jun 24, 2018 

...for sure what the author meant with such little context, the use of "y mucho menos..." suggests that the second term is the (slightly) more serious/egregious of the two. So maybe the first could be 'cushy jobs' (i.e., easy jobs) as Francois has suggested, with something along the lines of 'plum appointment' (i.e., a lucrative and high-profile position that may also be 'poco trabajoso') for cononjías. I think 'mucho menos' may be the key to distinguishing between the two.

21:54 Jun 24, 2018 

Cushy jobs are given to friends and cronies, whereas perks are associated with a position or a profession. So there is no pejorative connotation associated with perks.

I agree, however, that perks are suspect when they are outrageous.

20:37 Jun 24, 2018 

I wonder if prebendas are government posts for people who supported a candidate (i.e. an actual job) and canonjías are government posts where you just show up to pick up the pay check (i.e. you don't work, akin to the ñoqui in Argentina)

19:59 Jun 24, 2018 

See what happens when you don't bother to check all the meanings of "prebenda"? ;-)

19:57 Jun 24, 2018 

And so is "prebenda":
"4. f. coloq. Oficio, empleo o ministerio lucrativo y poco trabajoso."
http://dle.rae.es/?id=TuMD5FX

Which doesn't help at all to distinguish them. And indeed they are usually synonymous, except that, as the context here suggests, a canonjía ("mucho provecho") is, if anything, more lucrative than a prebenda ("lucrativo").

19:18 Jun 24, 2018 

if in this case "canonjía" is being used with this meaning:
2. f. coloq. Empleo de poco trabajo y bastante provecho.
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