“Well, how are the machines? First of all… Are you okay? Is everything okay? Well, come on, let’s take a picture.” The singer David Bisbal revolutionized social networks with these nice words that he pronounced before a group of fans who were waiting for the man from Almeria at the exit of the venue where he was performing. With “how are the machines” turned into a meme, it is a good opportunity to inquire about what the expression “being a machine” means and what its origin is.
To begin with, it should be noted that machine is a noun that means “artifice to take advantage of, direct or regulate the action of a force” or “set of devices combined to receive a certain form of energy and transform it into another more suitable one, or to produce an effect determining”. However, in this idiom the term machine is used as an adjective.
As recalled in FundéuRAE, the expression “to be a machine” entered the electronic version of the Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy (DRAE) in 2010, after having been agreed by the 22 Language Academies. For academics, “to be someone or something a machine” is a verbal locution that means “to constantly and tirelessly produce a lot or develop a great activity”.
In this way, a student who has learned the whole lesson inside out is a machine; a waiter who serves dozens of orders quickly and without ever making a mistake is a machine or a striker who doesn’t stop scoring goals throughout the season is another machine. In colloquial Spanish we have other very popular equivalents, such as “to be a crack”, “to be a beast” or “to be an as”.
Machines have facilitated many of the tasks performed by humans. We can talk about (simple) machines since Archimedes studied the lever, the pulley and the screw in the 3rd century BC, but it was from the Industrial Revolution (1750/1850) when they had a profound effect on social, economic and cultural conditions. .
A machine is today an efficient device, capable of producing constantly and without rest. Being compared to a machine in any activity is considered a positive thing. Another thing is that we enter an emotional context, where being a machine can mean being someone without feelings.
The machine is present in other expressions: “forcing the machine” means trying your best and “at full speed”, going very fast. It seems that there is a kind of admiration for these gadgets that make our lives easier.
The prolific and controversial artist Andy Warhol, for example, also praised them, although with a certain touch of melancholy: “I would like to be a machine. Life hurts so much… If we could become machines, everything would hurt less. We would be more happy if we were programmed to be happy”.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
