Spanish word of the day - calvo

Spanish calvo = bald, calavera = skull
from L. calvus (bald), whence E. Calvin, Calvary, Calaveras (County), Chauvinism

Latin calvus yields Spanish calvo, from which descend Calavario (Calvary) and calavera (skull). English Calvary comes straight from the Latin, but Calvin (surname and given name...originally a Roman nickname) is borrowed from the French.The famous philosopher John Calvin was born in France as Jean Chauvin. Another Chauvin, a legendary soldier in Napoleon's Grande Armee named Nicholas Chauvin, was so devoted to the Emperor that his surname became associated with exaggerated, blind patriotism. Fr. Chauvinisme resulted, whence E. chauvinism.

Out in California, some years later, much of the gold-rush country fell within Calaveras County. Mark Twain, famously familiar with mining towns, wrote a humorous short story called The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. It concerns a clever gambler who is outsmarted by a more clever gambler. The true winner of that contest is present-day Calaveras County, a tourist area that generates mucho dinero from its manufactured history.

Copyright © 2007 - Jerry Schnell - All rights reserved

Spanish Word of the Day - ceja

Spanish ceja = eyebrow
from L. cilia (eyebrow, eyelid) plural from L. cilium (eyebrow, eyelid)

E. supercilious = literally: of or pertaining to a raising of the eyebrow as an expression of haughtiness

Latin cilium (eyelid) became supercilium (eyebrow), which became superciliosus (with raised eyebrows, hence haughty, disdainful, contemptuous).

A highbrow is:
a person of superior intellectual interests and tastes ... or...
a person with intellectual or cultural pretensions; intellectual snob

A lowbrow is:
A person who is uninterested, uninvolved, or uneducated in intellectual activities or pursuits

Highbrows look down on lowbrows, and lowbrows look down on highbrows. Highbrows, however, are better at displaying superciliousness during the looking-down process.

Copyright © 2007 - Jerry Schnell - All rights reserved

Spanish Word of the Day - gringo

Spanish gringo = gringo
from Sp. griego (Greek)
It's all Greek to me.

Rome was a great military power. Greece was a great cultural and intellectual center. Each had a need for the other. Each felt contempt for the other. They were a perfect match.


Upper class Roman youths could not aspire to high rank without a classical Greek education. That included fluency in the Greek language. The teachers were Greeks, and excellent teachers they were. They also were excellent eaters and drinkers (click here for the origin of parasite). As Rome's fortunes waned in the west, so did Greece's. But the eastern Roman Empire survived very well in what had become the Byzantine Empire. Greek culture completely dominated there. As learning and culture slowly crept back into Western Europe, so did Greek cultural influence. The educated few still needed a command of the Greek language.

Time went by and relations between the Roman Church and the Byzantine Church, never very good, worsened. Respect for Greek language and culture weakened. The Great Schism formalized the break and derogatory phrases such as "It's all Greek to me" entered into use. The Greek language had passed from an object of veneration to an object of scorn. Spanish griego (a Greek), corrupted to gringo, was applied first to a foreign (incomprehensible) language, then to a speaker of such language. The first recorded use of the word referred to a group of Irishmen living on the coast of Spain. The Spaniards were fond of the Irish because they were the enemy of their enemy, England. Many years later, the Germans became fond of the Irish for the same reason.

As a point of interest, the Greeks sharply divided all people into two classes: Greeks and barbarians. The barbarians were barbaroi (speakers of an incomprehensible language, where barbar- was echoic of the babbling noises of the barbarians).

Almost any non-Spanish-speaking person could be a gringo, except for Italian immigrants to Argentina. They became wops (from Sp guapo = handsome).

Copyright © 2007 - Jerry Schnell - All rights reserved

Spanish word of the day - mordida

Sp. mordida = E. bribe (bite, nibble)
from L. mordere (to bite), whence E. morsel (a bite-sized portion of food) and mordant (an adjective meaning 'biting,' as in mordant humor.

Think of this policeman as a (high-end) waiter with a gun. As with the waiter, his formal wages are not sufficient to marry and raise a family. The waiter makes up the difference with tips, the policeman with mordidas. Viewed in that light, the mordida system can be considered a user tax whereby the cost of policing is passed directly to the consumer. The system thrives because it is accepted, and it is accepted because the mordida is a nibble, not a ferocious bite. Ferocious bites are reserved for those officials higher up the food chain.

The mordida almost invariably is connected to an actual infraction of the law. That's a point of honor, heh heh. The apprehended malefactor (a jaywalker, for example, or a speeder), is expected to know that an informal, semi-friendly nibble is hugely preferable to the formal alternative, because that way leads to an area where mordidas are no longer nibbles and the concept of time loses all meaning. Many an American tourist has learned the mordida system at huge personal and financial cost.


As the Western Hemisphere becomes engulfed in the drug culture and the drug wars, it's not necessarily wise to view a Mexican policeman as a waiter with a gun. He could very well be a gangster with a gun. In any event, it is (and always has been) extremely counterproductive to get chesty with one. For a closer look at Mexican law enforcement as it exists in many areas today, go to Inside the Mexican Police. Fasten your seatbelt. And keep in mind that the police described here are are a kinder and gentler group than those involved in the drug wars at la frontera.

Copyright © 2007 - Jerry Schnell - All rights reserved

Spanish Word of the Day - buey

Spanish buey = ox
from L. bovis, whence E. bovine
The noble ox was the engine of Manifest Destiny.


"The ox is a most noble animal, patient, thrifty, durable, gentle and does not run off. Those who come to this country will be in love with their oxen. The ox will plunge through mud, swim over streams, dive into thickets and he will eat almost anything." (Oregon Trail Pioneer Peter Burnett)

The most famous warhorse of all time was considered unbreakable until the 12 year old lad who would become Alexander the Great observed the reason for the stallion's wild behavior. He was afraid of his own shadow. Alexander solved the problem by placing the horse facing the sun so that his shadow fell behind him. He mounted the horse and rode off into history. Bucephalos (Oxhead, Alexander's affectionate name for him) died of battle wounds in India at age 28. The grief-stricken Alexander buried him, then founded a city and named it after him (Bucephala, thought to be modern-day Jhelum in Pakistan).

Mounted warriors in those days had access to neither saddles nor stirrups. It took hardy men with sturdy legs and well trained horses to give battle from horseback.

Copyright © 2007 - Jerry Schnell - All rights reserved

Spanish Word of the Day - puño

Spanish puño = fist
from L. pugnus, hence E. pugnacious, etc.

Latin pugnus (fist) yielded Spanish puño (fist), and puño yielded puñal (a dagger held in the fist). On the English side, pugnus gave us pugilist and pugnacious, two words that pack a punch (another pugnus-related word). A short list of the Spanish and English words appears in the diagram below.

The poniard (it ryhmes with "boneyard" and is cousin to the puñal, which rhymes with "spoon y'all") has appeared countless times in swashbuckler movies. In sword-fighting scenes, the sword hand uses the sword (natch) for long distance work, while the other hand takes the poniard in fist and goes to work up-close and personal. Never get in a fist fight with a poniard man.




Latin pugnus had a Greek cousin, pygme.

"The term Pygmy, considered derisive by the people it purports to describe, derives from the Greek word pygme - a unit of length defining the distance from the elbow to the knuckles (a cubit - JS) - used by Greek writers including Homer to name a people shrouded in myth more than two millennia ago." (National Geographic, Nov. 1989 - The Efe, Archers of the African Rain Forest - Rob't C. Bailey)

You can tell from their body language that these Pygmies are uncomfortable with Mr. Big. They probably sense he looks down on them.

As a point of interest, the duke, of "put up your dukes," comes from rhyming Cockney slang. Duke of York was slang for fork. Duke was extracted from the phrase and took on the meaning of the fist that held the fork, then fist in general. Put up your dukes means (as you've always known) put up your fists. "Outside for knuckle drill, muchachos!"

Copyright © 2007 - Jerry Schnell - All rights reserved

Spanish Word of the Day: ballena

Spanish ballena = whale
from L. ballaena, whence E. baleen

"They called it a what?"

Dionysus was the Greek god of wine, fertile crops, and, uhh, regeneration. He was celebrated once a year in a series of festivals containing ceremonies that are regarded as the origin of Greek drama, which was the forerunner of all Western drama. Other ceremonies were devoted to frolicking. The opening ceremony for the frolickers was a parading of the phallos pole, which had the shape of a very large you-know-what. There were sea monsters at the time and the Greeks, no small thinkers, likened the shape of certain of those to the phallos. Greek phallaina (whale) resulted.

Greek phallaina became Latin ballaena, upon which Spanish ballena (whale) and English baleen (whalebone) are formed.


In the whaling days, ladies in whalebone corsets graced drawing rooms lighted by whale-oil lamps. What saved the whales (and killed the whaling industry) was not human kindness. Hardly that. It was the discovery of cheaper underground oil to replace that siezed from undersea monsters.

As a point of interest, there are two kinds of whales: those with teeth and those with baleen (whalebone) instead of teeth. The baleen group includes the blue whales (see above), the largest animals ever to have lived. Their whalebone acts as a sieve to strain plankton and tiny crustaceans from sea water. Yum-oh.

Copyright © 2007 - Jerry Schnell - All rights reserved