VOOZH about

URL: https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/shouting-vs-crying.3194369/

⇱ Shouting vs crying | WordReference Forums

Menu
Install the app
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.

Shouting vs crying

lzarzalejo73

Senior Member
Spanish
I'm not sure which verb would suit better in the following sentence: "For decades the water from the Fuente del Avellano was collected daily by water sellers in their earthen water pitchers to sell it in town, shouting the bodily and soul benefits of their merchandise" Could someone, please cast some light on the subject? Thanks in advance for your kind cooperation.
I think "shouting" is fine. "calling out" is another option. But the sentence would flow more smoothly (in my opinion) like this:

.....shouting/calling out the benefits of their merchandise for body and soul.

Another word that occurs in this context is "hawking" - hawking their merchandise.
The choice of verb is critical to the description of the water-sellers: How they proclaim their water defines how the writer views them.

So, if you tell us how the water-sellers should be perceived, then the choice of verb will should be easy.
Thank you so much, both. I'm afraid I cannot answer you question, PaulQ, as much as I'd like to. They "used to announce" their merchandise, shouting "Water", to quench people's thirst in hot places, provinces in the south of Spain, at a time when there was not, still, tap water in the homes; or simply to the thirsty passer-by before the bottled water business was discovered. Cheers!
Thanks. In that case, I agree with Joanvillafane. "shouting/calling out the benefits of their merchandise for both body and soul"
The traditional term for what vendors did in the streets was to cry their wares. The traditional (and often lyrical) calls that vendors made (such as Molly Malone announcing that she had "Cockles and mussels, alive, alive-o!") were called "street cries". I would therefore use the term "crying" rather than "shouting".
Crying seems 19th century to me and would usually collocate with "wares".
Crying seems 19th century to me and would usually collocate with "wares".
Since we are talking of street vendors water from earthen pitchers, I think it is clear that wares are involved, and tha we probably aren't in this century -- and perhaps not even so far as the 19th. 👁 Smile :)


The image that came to my mind was the painting by Velazquez of a man with the job in question:
"Shouting their wares" is another possibility, and also "crying out their wares".

Google Ngram Viewer

But here we have shouting the bodily and soul benefits of their merchandise, which complicates things.

"...crying out the benefits of their own wares, both for the body and for the soul." (I'm not too happy with water as "wares" or "merchandise " either, but nothing else springs to mind.)
In any case, in today's English -- even in imitation of, or as reference to, single verbs used in times past -- I'd much prefer to turn both "crying" and "shouting" into their phrasal counterparts, shout out or cry out.

(I can imagine someone asking me what "cry their wares" means, and as explanation immediately resorting to "It meant crying their offers to the public" as others have noted and used these phrasals in their own posts here.)
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom