Words, words, words, are made to love...

I noticed with interest some comments by observers at the recent World Cup game between Uraguay and Mexico who said that even though both countries speak Spanish, the Uruguayan players and fans and the Mexican players and fans could hardly understand each other. This is because the people of Uruguay and Argentina both speak a dialectal variant of Spanish called Rioplatense Spanish or Río de la Plata Spanish that is mainly spoken in the areas in and around the Río de la Plata basin region between Argentina and Uruguay. If you happen to go to one of those countries and want to communicate effectively you will need to add several thousand new words to your vocabulary that are used there but not very much in other places. It is the same thing with idiomatic expressions or what are commonly called "modismos" in Mexican Spanish.

Even if you stick to one Spanish speaking country in particular it is a real challenge to acquire sufficient vocabulary and idiomatic expressions to be able to jump in and hang on to every conversation. In my case, because I am classified as a technician or "tecnico", I have had to acquire a technical vocabulary as well as a conversational or "social" vocabulary that is specific to my industry. Am I finished yet? Nope! The quest never ends but it is easier and more rewarding if you work at it with a plan. When aquiring a basic beginner's vocabulary remember that you need to learn words from many categories. Here are just a few:

Parts of the body
Clothing
Toilet articles
Parts of the house
Furniture
Kitchen implements
Food, such as meat, vegetables, fruit, dairy products, baked goods, condiments, beverages, etc.
Seasons
Weather and climate
Directions
Relatives such as children, aunts, uncles, cousins, in-laws, etc.
Animals
Birds
Fish
Insects
Trees
Flowers

The list goes on and on. You need to systematically make your own categories and make it a point to learn as many words associated with each category as you can. Once you have a fairly well established vocabulary of about ten to twelve thousand words you can become a word hunter like I am. By the way, if you need a way to keep track of how many words that you know I suggest the "Corn Flakes Method" that I wrote about awhile back and that you can access by clicking here.

To become an effective word hunter and vocabulary builder you must be ruthless and never let new words or idiomatic expressions escape your grasp. I always carry a pen and some three by five inch blank index cars in my pocket upon which I scribble down words and expressions as soon as I see them or hear them. I will even interrupt someone to get them to write a word or expression for me and explain what it means. You simply must do this or the opportunity will fly by and you will be condemned to be wandering around in the fog of uncertainty forever. I write down words from many sources including billboards, television commercials, newspaper articles, instructions on pill bottles, and every other conceivable source. Let's see what I have in today's catch!

The first item is an idiomatic expression that you might never guess if you didn't ask someone. The expression is "¡Patas para suando son!" Literally it translates as "Paws (or hooves) for when they are". It means "Feet don't fail me now" or in other words, "Scram, let's get out of here" or "Run for it!". There is an even stranger version that is very common locally where I live and it means more or less the same thing: "¡Patas para que te quiero!" or "Feet for that I love you!", meaning "Run for your life!". If you don't know what expressions like this mean don't just let them pass by you but stop immediately and write them down or you will never get past first base. You don't have to use them yourself but just knowing what they mean will be the difference between being included in the conversation or just somebody hanging around the fringes. At the very least you will know when to smile or frown. As for how expressions like this originated don't even ask because nobody really knows.

The next word on my cards for today is "carcacha" which means "a junk automobile".

The word "embosada" means "ambush".

"Guantes de carnaza" means "work gloves". If you look up "carnaza in your dictionary, however, it will probable say that "carnaza" means "bait" as does its variation "carnada". Technically "carnaza" is the side of an animal skin that goes against the flesh or in other words, the "rough" side. Guantes de carnaza are gloves with the rough leather on the outside.

A "cárcamo" is a pit or sump from which water is pumped. A sump pump is called a "bomba de cárcamo".

Be careful! The word "cárcamo" with an "r" is not to be confused with the word "cáncamo" with an "n". A "cáncamo" is a bolt with a ring on the end such as an "eye bolt". Not only that but what we call in English a "screw eye" like that which is used to latch a wooden screen door, in Spanish is called an "armella" pronounced "ahr-MAY-yuh". Now it just so happens that the name of my dearly departed mother is "Armella" which is spelled the same but pronounced "Ahr-MEH-lah". There is actually a Blessed Armella who was a saintly servant girl in England long ago and who is listed in the registry of Catholic saints. So how did Saint Armella become a screw eye? Go figure!

Anyway, that wraps it up for today. Now go out there and collect some words!

¡ Hasta la Próxima !

How the heck can I wash my neck ?

It ain't gonna rain no more, no more,
It ain't gonna rain no more.
So how the heck can I wash my neck,
If it ain't gonna rain no more?

"It Ain't Gonna Rain No More" was one of my father's favorite songs. It was written and recorded by Wendell Hall in 1923. As a matter of fact it was the best selling record of that year and it sold over two million copies. Wendell Hall was born in 1898 in Kansas and started his career in Vaudeville. He played both the xylophone and the ukulele and later became famous for his work with the ukulele. Wendell was known as both "the red-haired music maker" and the "pineapple picador". In those days when radio wasn't yet very developed people made their own entertainment and the ukulele and the banjo were very popular. When I was a kid many of my older relatives used to reminisce about playing in banjo and ukulele bands and how much fun it was. The servicemen of World War II grew up listening to music written by Wendell Hall and his songs were great favorites. I think my father knew about one hundred verses to "It Ain't Gonna Rain No More" and he and his army buddies probably made up most of them.

For the past month I have been searching the sky for rainclouds and humming my father's old song. As it happens every year I was getting a little desperate for a nice soaking rain. Last week we had a few light evening showers in places but they did little more than settle the dust and raise the humidity. Very early this morning, in the "wee" hours on the Feast of Saint Anthony, we received our first soaking rain. The the birds and the bees and the grass and the trees are all smiling and so are the farmers. It is like taking that first swig of iced tea after a long and grueling tennis match in the hot sun. Thank you, God, for the rain...and for everything else too!

I now have a clue.

Have you ever wondered about why Gringos and Mexicans have such a different perception of time? Today I was browsing Mark Frauenfelder's blog "Boing Boing" and I saw a You Tube presentation by Professor Philip Zimbardo on "The Secret Powers of Time". This presentation is very well done. It makes a lot of sense and I plan to watch it a number of times until I grasp the whole thing in its entirety and can explain it to others. I am sure that you will enjoy it. This will also be especially helpful to anyone with kids or grandkids who is interested in the future.

Any day now...

May is beyond a doubt the hottest month in the Bajío (bah-HEE-oh) region of the central highlands of Mexico where I live and that holds true for most of the country. There is a window from the middle of May through the middle of June when the rainy season begins and things start to cool off quite nicely. The rainy season isn't like a full blown monsoon but we generally have some nice late afternoon or evening showers a couple times per week for several months and everything turns very green. This is the season when the reservoirs fill up so that we will have sufficient irrigation water during the winter dry season. If it doesn't rain by June 24th, which is the day celebrating the birth of St. John the Baptist, it is a bad omen indeed. In the old days in Mexico many people bathed completely only on that day of the year. Often times this was a ritual bathing because Saint John is the patron saint of water. He is not only the first cousin of Jesus but according to Jesus Himself, St. John was the greatest prophet (Matt. 11:9-11) and John shares the distinction with Jesus and Mary of being the only three individuals whose birthday the Catholic Church celebrates in the liturgical calendar. The date is very close to the Summer Solstice on June 21st and the birthday of Saint John marks exactly the halfway point in the year until Christmas.

The majority of the crops in the Bajío region are watered by irrigation water from the reservoirs. There are some brave souls, however, who practice dry land farming by necessity and these are the folks to watch if you want to know when the rains will start. If they plant their seeds too soon the the bugs, and birds, and field mice will eat the seeds before they sprout or perhaps they will will sprout and then die from lack of water. If the farmers wait too long to sow the seeds the rains will come first and then it will be too muddy to go into the fields and plant except by hand and that is a very messy and time consuming process. On average, the dry land farmers get a really good crop only about one out of every three years and so for them it is a big gamble to get it right. This week I noticed that the dry land farmers have started sowing their crops. That means that the rains should be here in about ten days. It will be interesting to see how close they come to hitting the mark. I am betting that we will soon be singing in the rain. It is time to repair your "paraguas" (umbrella) and parch that hole in your "techo" (roof).

My guardian dear...

When I was a little boy and even today now that I am a big boy, when saying my nightly prayers I always include the "Angele Dei" or "Prayer to One's Guardian Angel". I am sure that you know it but in case you don't, it goes like this:

Angel of God, my guardian dear,
To whom God's love commits me here,
Ever this day, be at my side
To light and guard, to rule and guide.
Amen.

If you are Latin buff you can say it in the original Latin like this:

Ángele Dei,
qui custos es mei,
me, tibi commíssum pietáte supérna,
illúmina, custódi,
rege et gubérna.
Amen.

This prayer is about one thousand years old. It was written in the 11th Century by Reginald of Canterbury who was an English monk and poet. The Ángele Dei is found in Reginald's "Life of St. Malchus", about a famous hermit who was a friend of St. Jerome who lived in the fourth century. You remember St Jerome don't you? He was the one who first translated the Hebrew and Greek portions of the Bible into what we call "The Latin Vulgate Bible". He and St. Malchus were also really big on celibacy of which I must say that I am not a big fan. More to my liking is St Anselm who was a friend of Reginald and who was the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 to 1109. He was also a very smart man and is known as the father of scholasticism. Why do I like him so much? Because he was the archbishop who openly and bravely opposed the Crusades for which we are still reaping negative consequences to this very day.

I just happen to be the "padrino" (godfather) of a little four year old Mexican boy named Ian so I take special interest in guardian angels these days. As a matter of fact little Ian says a prayer to his guardian angel every night but the Spanish version of Ángele Dei is slightly different than the English version. It goes like this:

Ángel de mi guarda dulce compañía,
No me desampares ni de noche ni de día.
No me dejes solo que me perdería.
Amén.

Dear guardian angel my sweet companion,
Do not forsake me night or day.
Do not leave alone lest I get lost.
Amen.

In case you are interested, guardian angels have their own special feast day on October 2nd. Don't forget to take your GA to lunch on that day. Go ahead and order for your angel. Hint, hint...I think they like angel food cake and just in case your angel isn't hungry you can always eat theirs for desert.

Guardian Angels - Don't leave home without them!

God bless you!

When I was a kid growing up in the Catholic faith in Chicago, the priest was the one who did most of the blessing. Yes, we did say "God bless you!" whenever somebody sneezed and people did ask their parents for a "blessing" when they wanted to get married but mainly it was the priest who made the Sign of the Cross over anyone else other than their own selves. Here in Mexico, however, it is a little different story. I see people blessing each other rather frequently, especially older folks. In fact, my wife Gina and I bless each other whenever we are going to be separated. Whenever one of us leaves the house the other holds their right hand upright with palm facing to the left in front of the others person's face. Then as the giver of the blessing recites the prayer below and comes to the words of the Sign of the Cross, they make the sign over the other while at the same time saying the words. At the end of the prayer they keep holding the hand upright and the recipient of the blessing kisses the edge of the upright hand and then we give each other a sweet kiss on the lips before we part. If it is the will of God that something should happen to one of us after we part then this is how we would like to remember our parting moment.

Here is the prayer:

Yo te bendigo y que Dios te cuide y proteja por donde quiera que vayas, que te aleje de envidias y peligros, que San Pedro te cubra con su manto. Que vayas y regreses con bien a casa en el nombre del Padre, del Hijo, y del Espíritu Santo. Amén.

I give you my blessing that may God watch over and protect you wherever you go, and keep you away from jealousy and danger, and that Saint Peter will cover you with his cloak. May you go and return home safely in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Now, before I get comments from conservative Catholics with their copies of "De Benedictionibus" in hand claiming that only a priest is authorized to make the Sign of the Cross in blessing, let me say that I am sorry if we step outside the rules once in awhile but I don't think that God is going to send me to Hell or extend my time in Purgatory for blessing my wife in His name. Not only that but after you read all the rules involving blessings you begin to wonder if people curse so much because it is less complicated. In any case let me take this opportunity to bless all of my readers in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit and I take full responsibility for the consequences.

Thanks for the help!

I didn't start studying Spanish in earnest until I was fifty years old and now twelve years later I am still working at it. I don't think that there is an end to the learning so I have accepted the fact that I must learn something new every day and like the Beatles first sang in 1967 "I get by with a little help from my friends". Other than my wonderful wife Gina my best source of new words actually comes from my fellow bloggers. This week so far I have learned the word "farallón" from my friend Brenda of the blog "Brenda and Roy Going to Mexico". A "farallón" is a giant rock, usually by the edge of the sea. From my friend Don Cuevas of the blog "My Mexican Kitchen" I learned that the word "berros" means "watercress" and from Mindy at "The Rosas-Standring Family" I learned that the word "tábano" means "horsefly". My friend Alfredo of "The Diary of Alfredo" taught me that "polluelo" means "baby bird". I have always used "pollito" but a "pollito" is a young chick that has been out of the egg for awhile. A "polluelo" is a chick that just hatched out of the "huevo" (egg). Last but not least, my friend Benjamín Arredondo of "El Bable" taught me that "escupidera" means "spittoon". So there you have it folks...another good reason to stay alive. Everyday I look forward to capturing a new Spanish word and the hunt goes on and on. The great guru of positive affirmation, Émile Coué, use to declare, "Every day in every way I'm getting better and better". Thanks to my friends I can paraphrase that a bit and say positively that "Every day in every way my Spanish is getting better!"

¡Gracias Amigos!

Virtually the Future

On May 23rd we encountered the thirtieth anniversary of Pacman. It is hard to believe that so much time has passed since that little video screen character came into being but the year 1980 is a dividing line of sorts where the coming of Pacman and the IBM Personal Computer changed everything. Pacman was really just a novelty but the IBM “PC” gave the average person the ability to go from “catch-up” and “always falling behind” to “real time”. As soon as the accountants discovered this and began using basic primitive spreadsheet programs like VisiCalc and Lotus 1-2-3 the “bottom line” moved up to “top dog” and accounting departments went from riding in the caboose to sitting up front in the locomotive.

Pacman and its earlier cousin Pong (1972) lead the video game parade but it wasn’t long before there were other video games. I remember how the kids (and their dads) queued up in the foyer of our local movie theater where the pin ball machines were placed to catch spare quarters in between movies. The young people were no longer gathered at the pin ball machines though. They were lined up in front of a primitive video game called “Space Invaders”. About that time a young man at the Union Pacific Railroad named Tom Campbell realized what a powerful hold that a video screen had on people. After all, the younger generation at that time had grown up staring at a television set. He developed a training program for the UP Mechanical Department employees called “Pacman Carman”. In railroad lingo, a “carman” is someone who repairs and maintains railroad cars. That is the field that I work in.

Up until “Pacman Carman” came along the UP training sessions were given in a classroom by an instructor who stood in front of a blackboard. Just like school teachers the world over some of the instructors were very good and could hold the students’ attention but there were also some teachers who were boring and the student’s attention would gradually drift away. Tom realized that if he put the best instructors in front of a camera and video taped the training session then they could replay the tape anywhere in front of any number of students and he could consistently control the quality of the instruction. After all, most of the students had been watching television since before they could remember.

Tom’s new idea worked like a charm. The training results improved dramatically and the training costs were greatly reduced. The students focused on the TV monitor and the training sessions could be replayed as often, and to as many people as necessary. No longer did they have to gather people into groups at a specific location at a specific time in front of an instructor. You could instruct just one student or you could instruct twenty students with just a video player and a TV set. Here we are thirty years later and we still do the same thing but now we have even more tools like the Internet and YouTube tutorials instead of just video tape.

I don’t think the story ends here, however. I think that we are about to enter the 3-D virtual world where you can see how things are assembled and disassembled in three dimensions on your computer screen. I was surprised to find that right now the Video Game Industry at twenty billion dollars annual revenue is bigger than the movie industry at only seventeen billion dollars. Today you can actually study video game design in college and start out earning a salary of forty thousand dollars per year right out of school. Just recently I started taking some formal art lessons. I only took a few because it was too boring. The teacher kept reminding me that I must follow the method of the old masters because that is the way to learn “art”. It struck me that I really don’t need lessons from the “old” masters but rather I need lessons from the “new” masters. I believe that if Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci and their contemporaries were alive today they would probably be working at computers in the realm of virtual art. I always thought that if you wanted to know what the future would be like you could just take a video tape of the past and roll it forward. I don’t think that anymore. I think that the future is a whole new ballgame. Batter up!

Let me see your rabbit!

When I was a little boy my friends and I would frequently challenge each other by saying, "Make a muscle with your arm and let's see which one has a bigger muscle". Then we would roll up our sleeves and flex our biceps and compare muscles with one another. In Mexico, however, the little boys (and sometimes big boys) don't say that. Instead they say "A ver tu conejo" or "Let's see your rabbit", the word "rabbit" in this case being synonymous with bicep as in "músculo del conejo" or "rabbit muscle". Why is this? Well, the best explanation that I can find is that he term "biceps brachii" by which the biceps muscle is known in medical terms is a Latin phrase meaning "two-headed muscle of the arm". This stems from the fact that the fact that the biceps muscle actually consists of two bundles of muscle, each with its own origin, sharing a common insertion point near the elbow joint. If you "make a muscle" with your biceps and turn your wrist one way and then the other way your bisceps muscle appears to run up and down your arm...like a rabbit.

Okay, if you don't believe me then put it to a test. The next time that you encounter a little Mexican boy say to him "A ver to conejo" and then watch him flex his arm and show off his biceps muscle. Hey...and don't forget to be impressed!

Mango Mix

Today on Twitter my blogger friend Leslie Limon wrote: "My kitchen smells SO good! Onion, garlic and dried ancho chilies...SIGH!" Immediately I thought, "Yes that does sound good but there is something missing...mangoes. However, I am not talking about the yellow mango fruit that grows on trees. I am talking about green bell peppers. In parts of Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Illinois, and Missouri, green bell peppers were known as "mangoes". When the mango fruit was first discovered by Portuguese explorers in East India the only way that it could be exported or transported without refrigeration was by pickling in vinegar and brine. It became a favorite treat and later on people made imitation pickled mangos by stuffing green bell peppers or certain types of hollowed out melons with things like cabbage, onions, cucumbers, brown sugar, and spices spices and then pickling them. It must have been a popular dish because green bell peppers, which are technically a fruit and not a vegetable, became commonly known as mangoes in the above mentioned places. You can see the name "mangoes" on old railroad manifests in reference to bell peppers and some old timers still refer to bell peppers as mangoes.

That brings me to my main topic, "mango mix". I learned about mango mix from a friend who talked me into running a hamburger concession stand with him one time. When we were ready to fire up the grill I asked him what he wanted me to do and he told me to start making "mango mix". Apparently mango mix is an old standby among carnival and county fair concessionaires. If you chop up equal parts of onions and green bell peppers and throw them on a grill with a dab of lard it makes a smell that quickly travels far and wide and makes people very hungry. It really works too. Ever since then whenever I have given a backyard party or am in charge of cooking for a picnic I rely heavily on mango mix. You need to make a bunch of it and I always have a little pile bubbling away on the corner of the grill or in a little frying pan. It makes people crazy. It doesn't mater what you cook after that. After people have had a few beers in them and smell the mango mix they will eat just about anything with gusto. Not only that but they will rant and rave about your cooking and you will meet neighbors that you have never met before. They will come around because they just can't help themselves. Mango Mix...don't leave home without it!

One more thing. Leslie Limon has inaugurated a new blog called "Motherhood in Mexico". Check it out. It's a little bit of everything. She is a great teacher.