levanton
n.— «During the last 10 years, hundreds of people from Tijuana to Matamoros have been forcibly carted off by heavily armed men sometimes sporting police insignias and uniforms. They are the victims of a style of violence known in border lingo as the “levantón,” which could be literally translated as the “lift” or “pickup.” Occasionally the “levantados” turn up murdered baring signs of torture but frequently they are transformed into memories of agony for distraught relatives.» —“Mexico’s Forgotten Disappeared: The Victims of the Border Narco Bloodbath” by Mark Getty in Ciudad Juárez Frontera NorteSur (New Mexico) Jan.-Feb., 2004. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Trivia time! Where in the United States can you visit Soda City? If you answered Columbia, South Carolina, you’re right! This nickname apparently derives from an old practice of abbreviating Columbia as Cola. The locals then referred to the town as...
