Male baristas aren’t called baristos for the same reason that male Sandinistas aren’t Sandinistos. There’s a certain class of nouns in both Italian and Spanish where the definite article changes to indicate gender, but the noun...
In Icelandic, the term for “midwife” literally translates as “light mother.” Icelanders voted it the most beautiful word in their language. Similarly, in Spanish, the phrase for “give birth,” dar a luz, translates...
The idiom “rob Peter to pay Paul,” means “to borrow someone from someone in order to repay someone else.” In Nicaragua, the same idea is expressed by a phrase that translates as “take Juan’s clothes to give them...
Among some Spanish speakers, the slang phrase sacapuntas en huevos refers to someone so stubbornly persistent, they could sharpen an egg. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Sharpen an Egg” We talked about sacapuntas, you...
Blueblood, a term often used to refer to WASPy or patrician folks, goes back to the 1700s and the Spanish term sangre azul. It described the class of people who never had to work outside or expose themselves to the sun, so blue veins would show...
Jerry in San Diego, a food server, heard a coworker vent in the kitchen with sacapuntas, Spanish for pencil sharpener. The word works as mock profanity because it sounds forceful without being obscene, and in parts of Mexico, including Baja and...