Something happens when people turn 80. In the case of my parents, for example, age 80 was the time they begin to lose bone and muscle mass. They simply became smaller people.
My dad was wont to order three of everything when he shopped in the Blair clothing catalog: one for himself, one for my brother Severino, and one for me.
The polo shirts he’d order were always his size, and since my brother and I were going the other direction, girth-wise, at least one of us — who shall remain nameless, shameless and blameless — looked like a stuffed sausage at gatherings where Dad insisted we all dress as in uniforms.
Something happened to the language as well: Suddenly, as they experienced their own diminution, my parents referred to objects in the same way. Every object they referred to had an “ito” or “ita” tacked on. Therefore, tamales became tamalitos, chile became chilito, and the list goes on. And it will.
Possibly because most octoctogenarians carry around less bulk than their former selves in, say, their 60s, they tend to downsize things around them. Paradoxically, it should be the other way around. Let’s say a grown man returns to his childhood haunt, a house he hasn’t entered since he was 10.
The house is going to seem much smaller. The hallways he bounced off as a little boy now are barely wide enough to accommodate his frame. Nevertheless, 80-year-olds see things differently, and it shows up in their language. Mom and Dad began addressing their offspring as “hijito” as opposed to just “hijo.” “Hijito” for a son much bigger than his dad? I’m glad my parents didn’t minimize my name to Arturito, which sounds too much like R2D2, the droid in Star Wars.
Even the food they ordered in restaurants became linguistically downsized. A beer, a cerveza, now was called a cervezita. Once Mom even added a second diminutive to the beer, offering me — count the -itas — una cervezitita. She’d made a teenie-tiny small little point. Was Mom fearing a 12-ounce serving of beer would intoxicate her hijitito? It was filling regardless of the label.
Once, at the Hillcrest, her ito-ness backfired. She wanted tacos but ordered taquitos and got just that. Sorry, Mom, that those rolled-up, half-size, deep-fried, bite-sized things were exactly what you asked for.
There are many diminutive forms in the language which have been conditioned by usage. That is, not every word with that particular prefix is viewed as a smaller version of itself. The popular song sung at birthdays, “Las Mañanitas” doesn’t mean “little mornings” but very early in the morning.
And some names ending in “ito” and “ita” have become such a part of the culture that one forgets they ever were a diminutive. For example, Anita and Evita are names few of us ever think of as representing little or affectionate Anns or Eves. The names seem complete as they are. Yet, when I meet an Anita, Evita or even a Lupita, I want to ask, “Do you have an older sister or mother, a fuller version of yourself?”
And I have trouble with certain men’s names that end in “ito,” such as Juanito and Benito, which, really, stand for smaller versions of the real thing. Though not necessarily the same as juniors, the Juanitos and Benitos obviously represent a bigger version, a Ben or a Juan, from whom the little guys sprang. The pint-sized suffix helps also to distinguish between the older and younger. Notice how important historic figures like Benito Juarez retained the suffix all his life? So when does a person shed the suffix?
It’s difficult to address a grown man as Benito or Juanito, when some of these people are large enough even to be called Benote or Juanote, the “-ote” being a suffix that means a larger version. Once, when a neighbor, Ernie Martinez, toured our much larger new house, he described it as “un chantote.” Now that’s like calling it a shanty, but a large one. Had it been tiny, the neighbor might has called it a “chantito.”
The suffix to describe a hoped-for period is common as well. When they were younger, Mom and Dad used to remind each other on Friday, “Y manana, sabadito.” That ought to translate to “And tomorrow, tiny Saturday,” but that wasn’t what they meant.
“Sabadito,” to my parents, was simply a way of looking forward to the weekend, a millennial experience of long-awaited joy. Sabadito was the day when Dad could leave work at noon, spend some time with Mom, go shopping and enjoy the rest of the weekend. But yet, it might be argued, Dad needed to put in a half day on many people’s day off, so the truncated “sabadito” may well have been called by its own diminutive.
When inviting us to dinner, Mom always told us what she’d be cooking: not enchiladas but enchiladitas, not posole but posolito, not tortillas (which already have their own diminutive suffix) but tortillitas. When we arrived, we didn’t notice any reduced portions. Was she playing semantic games, the way some dieters use smaller plates, but refill them more often, or how some men cut their large pepperoni pizza into three pieces, because four or more pieces would simply be too much? And did we actually eat smaller portions and leave the table less bloated when she served us “cafecito” and “pastelito” instead of “cafe” and “pastel” for dessert?
These examples of suffixes have been applied to things, but -itos and -itas fit adjectives as well. If one of us appeared to be scarfing down the food, Mom and Dad’s caution would be to eat more slowly, despacio. But to really slow us down, the word had to be despacito.
In the heat of the O.J. Simpson trial last decade, the presiding judge, Lance Ito, became thrust into the spotlight. Everyone in the country knew the name. My friend Gary Lewis told me that Judge Ito had apparently spent much time in northern New Mexico and may have bordered on being, well, prolific.
Puzzled, I ask Lewis’s meaning. He explained there are many boys named after the California jurist: Ben Ito, Juan Ito, Rafael Ito, Alfred Ito . . .
Hello Uncle Manny,
I just love your stories. They bring forth a new dimension in my memories of Nina and Tata. I also love your writing style. Take care and say hi to everyone.
Edmundito