Literary and archaic style

What it is

Every language keeps a drawer of words and constructions that conversation has dropped but literature, essays, speeches and solemn journalism still use. In Spanish that drawer holds mas, cual, sendos, por doquier, otrora, harto, ¡cuán…!, acaecer and empero, the -ra form used as a pluperfect (pluscuamperfecto) and a few deliberate agreement shifts (Los hispanohablantes solemos…). At C2 the goal has three parts: recognise all of it in a novel or a newspaper column, use a little of it, with control, in an essay, a speech or a toast, and never use it in an email, where it sounds pompous or ironic.

How to form it

Most items are single words that take the place of an everyday equivalent:

A few have grammar of their own:

• mas, the literary adversative conjunction (conjunción adversativa), is unstressed and has no written accent; it goes exactly where pero would. It never replaces sino.
• cual (no accent, unlike the question word cuál) takes a bare noun (cual fiera herida) or si + subjunctive (cual si nada hubiera pasado).
• sendos / sendas is always plural, comes before the noun without an article and agrees in gender: sendos premios, sendas medallas. It needs at least two people to share things out among.
• harto before an adjective is an adverb and never changes: harto difíciles, like muy difíciles.
• acaecer is used only in the third person and in non-finite forms: acaeció, lo acaecido.

The -ra form as a pluperfect. Mostly in relative clauses, literary and journalistic prose uses the -ra form with its old indicative meaning, "had done": la casa que fuera de mi abuela = que había sido de mi abuela. The press also uses it for a plain past: el que fuera ministro de Educación (the former minister). The -se form never takes this meaning.

Correlations (correlaciones). Cultured prose likes balanced pairs: así como…, así (también)… (just as…, so too…), cuanto más…, (tanto) más… (the more…, the more…), ya…, ya… or bien…, bien… (whether… or…: ya por timidez, ya por orgullo) and, for recognition only, ora…, ora… (now…, now…).

Agreement for effect (concordancia deliberada). The verb can agree with the meaning rather than the form:

• The speaker includes themselves: Los hispanohablantes solemos… (we Spanish speakers tend to…). Normal even in speech.
• With ser, the verb sides with the person rather than the noun: El problema somos nosotros. El culpable somos todos (all of us, the speaker included).
• Plural of majesty (plural mayestático): Nos, el Rey…, found in old royal and church documents, and in jokes.
• Plural of modesty (plural de modestia): a single author writes nos proponemos, como hemos visto. Unlike the plural of majesty, it is alive and well in academic writing.

When to use it

Read it everywhere: novels, essays, editorials, speeches and the more solemn kind of news, where los hechos acaecidos and el que fuera alcalde are routine. Use it sparingly yourself: one or two touches lift a toast or a short story; ten turn it into a parody.

• Quise responderle, mas me faltaron las palabras.I wanted to answer her, yet words failed me.literary "but", no accent
• Así como el viento dispersa las semillas, así también dispersa los rumores.Just as the wind scatters seeds, so too it scatters rumours.correlation
• Hablaba con calma, cual si nada hubiera ocurrido.She spoke calmly, as if nothing had happened.cual si = como si
• ¡Cuán distinto habría sido todo si hubiéramos hablado a tiempo!How different everything would have been if we had talked in time!literary exclamation
• Los hechos acaecidos aquella noche nunca se aclararon.What happened that night was never cleared up.acaecer: news and legal prose

Try it

Five quick exercises from this topic's training set:

Contrasts and traps

• mas ≠ más. Lo intenté, mas no pude (but); Quiero más tiempo (more). Writing más for "but" is a common slip, even among native speakers.
• mas ≠ sino. After a negative, a correction needs sino: No lo hizo por dinero, sino por orgullo. Mas, like pero, only adds a contrast.
• sendos ≠ ambos. Ambos equipos means both teams; sendos only shares out: Las dos capitanas levantaron sendos trofeos (one trophy each). The singular un sendo golpe, "a huge blow", is a popular misuse.
• Three hartos. Estoy harto de esperar (fed up: everyday, everywhere); harto difícil (very: cultured); harta gente, me gustó harto (a lot: everyday speech in Chile and Colombia, not literary at all).
• -ra ≠ -se. La casa que fuera de mi abuela is correct literary prose; que fuese is not, because -se is only ever subjunctive.

For Portuguese speakers

Several of these forms look like Portuguese, and that is exactly where the trouble lies:

• Your everyday mas is Spanish pero. Spanish mas exists, but it is literary: in an email, write quería ir, pero no pude. And corrective não… mas… becomes no… sino…: No es azul, sino verde.
• Acontecer is everyday Portuguese but formal Spanish: O que aconteceu? is ¿Qué pasó?, not ¿Qué aconteció?
• Porém is very common in Brazilian writing; its Spanish match is sin embargo or pero. Empero is archaic.
• Look-alikes: outrora loses its u (otrora), and sendos has nothing to do with sendo.
• Good news: the literary -ra is your mais-que-perfeito simples: a casa que fora da minha avó = la casa que fuera de mi abuela. Just remember that in everyday Spanish fuera is the imperfect subjunctive (se fosse).
• Os brasileiros somos is a literary figure in Portuguese (silepse de pessoa); Los brasileños somos muy abiertos is everyday Spanish.