While in a cooking class in Mexico, Travis from Orlando, Florida, was told by the instructor that the word quesadilla comes a supposed Nahuatl word, quesaditzen. That’s not the case, although many other food words derive from that indigenous...
The Spanish phrase aburrido como una ostra or “as bored as an oyster” is an apt simile because what does an oyster do all day? Only filtering water is no kind of life. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Spanish “Aburrido Como...
How do languages change and grow? Does every language acquire new words in the same way? Martha and Grant focus on how that process happens in English and Spanish. Plus, the stories behind the Spanish word gringo and the old instruction to...
Alex from Los Angeles, California, remembers his Spanish-speaking grandmother using filibustero to mean “ruffian.” The term shares an origin with English filibuster: both trace back to Dutch vrijbuiter, meaning “freebooter,” a pirate who seizes...
A sixth-grade teacher in San Antonio, Texas, is skeptical about a story that gringo derives from a song lyric. He’s right. The most likely source of this word is the Spanish word for “Greek,” griego, a term applied to foreigners...
A San Diego listener of Mexican descent says a scene in a Quentin Tarantino film has her wondering about the term Mexican standoff. Is it just a duel? A three-way duel, complete with guns? The end of a 1-1 doubleheader in baseball? Over time...