The Spanish word candado, or “padlock,” comes from Latin catenatus, meaning “chained,” also the source of the English word concatenation, which means “a series of things,” or literally “links in a chain.” In parts of the Spanish-speaking world, candado is also slang for “goatee and mustache,” which resembles a padlock. It’s also sometimes called a circular or barba española, a “circular,” or “a beard in the Spanish style.” That type of facial hair is sometimes jokingly known in English as a pudding ring. This is part of a complete episode.
Why do some Spanish speakers use adaptations of certain English terms when there’s already a perfectly good word for the same thing in Spanish? Sometimes the result is called “Spanglish.” For example, Spanish cuentas means “bills,”...
We’ve previously discussed when pigs fly and other idioms expressing profound skepticism that something will occur. That prompted an email from Guillermo in Tucson, Arizona, who shared a Spanish phrase that conveys a similar idea: cuando la...
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