Jane Alberdeston is a poet who lives in Norfolk, Virginia, but she’s originally from Puerto Rico, and notes that in the capital of Puerto Rico, San Juan, there’s a famous statue of Christopher Columbus with his finger pointing toward the...
A listener named Lita who grew up in Cuba shares her favorite Spanish idiom for “working hard”: sudando tinta, or literally, “sweating ink.” This is part of a complete episode.
Sarah Jane in Tucson, Arizona, recalls hearing the phrase out where God lost his galoshes for any far-flung, hard-to-reach place. Similar phrases include where God left his overshoes, where Jesus lost his sandals, where Jesus lost his cap, where...
In this bonus A Way with Words minicast, Martha and Grant explore the ways foreign place names transform on official maps and in local slang. Discover the stories behind names like “Picketwire” and “Key West,” showing how...
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...
