{"id":741,"date":"2011-04-13T12:28:10","date_gmt":"2011-04-13T06:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/?p=741"},"modified":"2011-05-18T13:00:34","modified_gmt":"2011-05-18T07:00:34","slug":"linguistic-tyranny","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/?p=741","title":{"rendered":"Linguistic tyranny"},"content":{"rendered":"

Growing up on Railroad Avenue, the place we called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Tough Street,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d presented manifold problems. Having left that barrio about 50 years ago, I still retain many quite lucid memories of that place.<\/p>\n

Mom and Dad, like so many other parents raising families in the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dc40s and \u00e2\u20ac\u02dc50s, probably believed children needed to acquire English as their primary language, and if we were to pick up a bit of Spanish along the way, well, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s even better. But to be fair, this behavior was a regular feature of our parents\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 generation, and it has faded somewhat during ours.<\/p>\n

Regardless of their intentions, I for one struggled, especially among kids I played with in the neighborhood and those I went to school with, at Immaculate Conception, for 12 years.<\/p>\n

We hear endless tales of how children got punished for speaking Spanish on the school playground. I never witnessed such a punishment, although others\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 tales abound.<\/p>\n

I recall an incident early in my school years, when we were playing ball and one of the boys, involved in a game of keep-away, wanted the ball and, accordingly, blurted out in Spanish, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Tira me la bola (toss me the ball).\u00e2\u20ac\u009d To that, the nun on playground duty, Sister Mary Krankenzimmer, told Alfred, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153On the playground, you are not to speak in Mexico.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

What? Alfred\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s reply was, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not speaking in Mexico; I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m speaking in the United States.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I believe that retort shortened his tenure at I.C. School, and Sister M.K. was instrumental in Alfred\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s removal.<\/p>\n

Like many others, I understood more than I spoke. And I must have spoken it oddly. For example, one time Dad sent me to Pe\u00c3\u00b1a\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Grocery, across the street, to buy a couple of Roi-Tan cigars. Well, what is Spanish for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153cigar\u00e2\u20ac\u009d if it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not \u00e2\u20ac\u0153cigarro\u00e2\u20ac\u009d?<\/p>\n

I asked the owner, for cigarros, and when he produced a few packs of cigarettes, I pointed instead to the cigars.<\/p>\n

Well, that led to a lesson on the difference between these types of smokes. And of course, Mr. Pe\u00c3\u00b1a told me what I should have ordered were \u00e2\u20ac\u0153puros.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d And his daughter, Lucy, who worked at the store, called me aside to explain the difference. Meanwhile, a young neighbor girl who had been taken in all the drama, rushed out to tell the neighborhood, in Spanish, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Manny (my nickname) doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know what a cigar is in Spanish \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and he talks funny.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Now in those days, w-a-y before the Internet or cell-phone texting, messages spread much faster than they do today. Was it going to be necessary to leave town for a few months until the humiliation abated? Would I never again be allowed to play neighborhood games?<\/p>\n

So, whatever Spanish I learned, I picked up on the street, and later in school. And much later, at the University of Virginia I managed to pass a gruelling written and oral exam in Spanish.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n

As a self-appointed language cop, I enjoy reading signs and listening to people and discovering unusual uses of both English and Spanish. A former Highlands student recently showed me an assignment he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d submitted on the uses of Spanish expressions in his hometown of Pojoaque. Is there a difference between what we speak here and what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s spoken in Pojack?<\/p>\n

Portions of the student\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s research will be covered in a future column. For now, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll just mention our tendency to tack a Spanish ending to an English word and hope we can get by. Thus, for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153typing\u00e2\u20ac\u009d we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll say \u00e2\u20ac\u0153taipiando.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never learned the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153proper\u00e2\u20ac\u009d way to say \u00e2\u20ac\u0153back up,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as a car, in Spanish. So what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s wrong with saying \u00e2\u20ac\u0153baquear\u00e2\u20ac\u009d?<\/p>\n

I learned recently that the Spanish verb, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153fregar,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d which we interpret as to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153bother,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153mess up,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d also describes what we do to dishes after dinner: we scrub them.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Wachate\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is common for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153watch yourself.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Had Zeus been a Latino, would he have said \u00e2\u20ac\u0153wachate\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to Narcissus?<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n

Northern New Mexico is dotted with little communities, usually with Spanish names, that are taken from a founders\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 name, a geographical feature, a carryover name for a previous site, or simply something on the land, like a fragua. What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a fragua?<\/p>\n

A reader, Sonya Berg, asked about the origin of Sapello, the village between Las Vegas and Mora. T.M. Pearce\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153New Mexico Place Names\u00e2\u20ac\u009d calls Sapello \u00e2\u20ac\u0153one of the most puzzling names in NM place history.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Pearce really struggled with this one. Among the speculations are \u00e2\u20ac\u0153toad,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153burial\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153scrubbing brush.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Pearce\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s volume even cites Fray Angelico Chavez, who refers to a river called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Shapellote.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d And Chavez posits that the word could be of Kiowa Indian origin, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153chapalote.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n

Richard Lederer, the author of Anguished English, has a language blooper a day in his new desk calendar. Here are some:<\/p>\n