\u00e2\u20ac\u0153When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
The book of Corinthians omitted one thing: What about eating? I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t eat as a child does. I liked the spicy stuff.<\/p>\n
So there I was, entering Estella\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Cafe on Bridge Street, by myself, at around age 11. For a long time, I failed to remember why I was there, alone. I recall now that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d gone to the Kiva Theater with my parents, failed to get the movie plot, and wandered off, across the street to check out their burgers.<\/p>\n
Remember that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re referring to the late \u00e2\u20ac\u02dc40s and early \u00e2\u20ac\u02dc50s, in the days when parents warned their children to stay on their own side of the Gallinas. Crossing the bridge might have its consequences. But we already had crossed the Bridge, so I felt safe.<\/p>\n
The smell of red chili\/chile drew me to Estella\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, where the only language I heard was Spanish. I craved a burger with red chile\/i but was afraid of being scoffed at because I had trouble rolling my r\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s (still do) and didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to negotiate the linguistics of attempting, in Spanish, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153colorado.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d So I said \u00e2\u20ac\u0153chile verde\u00e2\u20ac\u009d instead.<\/p>\n
Estella, my waitress, apologized, saying the restaurant had just run out of green, and would I be OK with red? Of course! That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what I wanted, but I still tried to seem disappointed.<\/p>\n
A few minutes later, she showed up with green, which I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want. Estella explained that she had managed to find the green stuff after all.<\/p>\n
Just a few bites converted me. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve loved the stuff ever since, and I still believe that there would be fewer wars if the negotiators were to agree first to sit down to a bowl of green chile\/i stew. Then they can talk war.<\/p>\n
I believe most people agree that the flavor of green and red chile\/i, whether it comes from Anton Chico, Chimay\u00c3\u00b3 or Hatch, is superb (it helps if the locale has a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153ch\u00e2\u20ac\u009d combination in its name). It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the spelling of the word that people disagree on.<\/p>\n
So as we cover the spelling of chile\/i, let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s agree to some terms:<\/p>\n
Juan Ortega, who taught Spanish at Memorial Middle School and at Luna Community College, asked me how I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d spell the word. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Does it end with an i or an e?
\nI dodged the question and asked how he pronounces the word. He said \u00e2\u20ac\u0153chileh,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d but he spells it \u00e2\u20ac\u0153chili.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Sara Harris, a retired Spanish professor, said she spells it with an e at end and pronounces it accordingly, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153unless I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m making chili con carne.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Sam Vigil, a retired educator, opts for the i at the end, but pronounces it as if it ended in eh.<\/p>\n
Unlike English, which has eight or nine different ways of rendering the combination \u00e2\u20ac\u0153ough\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (tough, though, thought, bough, through, etc.), Spanish is highly phonetic: What you see is what you get, so chili and chile must have slightly different pronunciations.<\/p>\n
The issue isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t restricted to the two sides of the Gallinas. Even the Los Angeles Times got into the spelling fray. The issue really heated up, and some of the comments were spicy. A column by Dierdre Edgar drew several comments.<\/p>\n
A Judith Perles wrote the newspaper, regarding the difference between chili and chile: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Chili gives you an ulcer,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d chile does not. Another writer added that the proper spelling is chile, unless \u00e2\u20ac\u0153you tourist it up by adding cheese, lettuce and tomato.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
A few years ago, when we were conducting testing for the Census Bureau, my census partner, Diana Abeyta, and I stopped at a Raton restaurant called El Matador.
\nWith a name like that, they must have great chile\/i, we thought. When I asked for a green chile\/i burger, the waitperson looked puzzled, asking what I meant.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I would like a hamburger with diced green chile\/i on top,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I explained. She said, tentatively, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Well, I guess I could put some green chiles on top,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and she did. But the fact that she pluralized the word indicated to us that she was about to get the chiles out of a can. And the way she responded told us she thought we must have been weird: Who in the world would dream of such a combination?<\/p>\n
So, what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the spelling solution? I believe that places that sell Tex-Mex combinations prefer to spell it chili. The others prefer the correct version: chile.<\/p>\n
Of course, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a band that performed in Austin last Sunday; they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re called the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The band apparently didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t consult the stylebook.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The book of Corinthians omitted one thing: What about eating? I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t eat as a child does. I liked the spicy stuff. So there […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/988"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=988"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/988\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":989,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/988\/revisions\/989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}