The Depth of Shame in the Word “Vergüenza”

Hi there, you have A Way with Words.

Good afternoon, this is Chris Mershrod calling from Ithaca, New York.

Well, good afternoon, Chris.

Hi, Chris, what’s up?

We have quite a few Spanish words in our English language, or American English usage, as you probably know from the cowboy days of the Spanish in the Southwest.

And since then others have crept into common usage like the word nada.

And one word that I think should be part of our general usage is the word vergüenza.

Vergüenza.

Why do you like the word vergüenza for a borrowing into English from Spanish?

Sometimes the translation is shame, you know, to have shame or lack of decency.

But in reality, in the Latin American culture, if your mother says to you, que vergüenza, or vergonzoso, right, it has much more emotional weight than shame on you.

And this is drummed into the culture, which I think we can pick up fairly quickly, to the effect that if someone, you know, you’re in a car, someone shouts at you, you’re sin vergüenza, it means you’ve done something that’s really against the moral fabric and the traditions and the folk ways.

You’re outside of decency, if you will.

And so the expression que vergüenza or vergonzoso or any derivation of that word, vergüenza, is something that we could really use in the present political climate to really put a word and a description of the unacceptable behavior of people.

So what you’re talking about is more about brazenness or audacity of the person who should be ashamed.

It’s something that they knew was wrong, and they did it just out of pure cussedness or just because they thought they could get away with it.

Well, I’m not sure they actually do it on purpose. It’s a character defect.

Oh, I see. I think I get what you’re saying. So this is about scoundrels.

They act without a conscience, right? They don’t have common decency. Something like that?

Exactly. That’s right.

There’s a saying that I saw in one of my Spanish dictionaries, something like, están sin vergüenza que estafaría hasta a su madre.

He’s such a scoundrel, he would even cheat his mother.

That’s exactly the definition of it, yes.

He would even take his mother for a ride and not think twice about it.

You’re getting here, you’re making a real strong connection to, I think, to the Latin roots of this word vergüenza, which we should spell. It’s V-E-R-G-U-E-N-Z-A, and the U has boop, the little dots on top of it.

And it comes from a Latin word meaning sense of shame or respect, discretion, even awe.

And ultimately, it goes back to a word that has the root of feeling respect or to revere or to feel awe of.

But in Roman culture, according to the scholar Robert Castor, to have veracundia, which is the word that it comes from, V-E-R-E-C-U-N-D-I-A, that it comes directly from, it was a sense of propriety deriving from knowing your position in society, like knowing who you are inferior to, who you’re superior to, or who you’re equal to, and never violating that hierarchy, being abundantly aware of this was a social virtue and it regulated your behavior in groups.

So it’s really deeper than just like, oh, no, I spilled my drink. I’m so embarrassed.

It’s not that kind of embarrassment at all.

I would add to that context, if you will, entitlement, the feeling of entitlement, that you can just do what you feel to do.

And as long as you’re entitled to it, why not?

Who should complain?

And that’s when the crowd should shout out, sin verguenza.

Yeah, and you know, when you talk about somebody being shameless, I don’t know, that word seems so deluded and watered down.

I mean, it’s just, you know, I think by repetition, I just don’t think saying somebody shameless necessarily has the same, I mean, it’s pretty much a translation, right?

Sin vergüenza and shameless, but it doesn’t feel the same in English to me.

Chris, I got to say, thank you for pointing out that, you know, bilingual dictionaries are interesting.

They can offer you a word-to-word translation.

But, boy, there can be a lot of culture that you can completely miss behind a word without immersing yourself in that culture for a long time.

And television and books and newspapers aren’t going to get everything.

You have to be there and know the people.

And feel the emotion of the whole thing.

Feel the emotion and feel the weight of your own errors, too.

Have that shouted at you to really know what a vergüenza truly is.

So you’ve spent a lot of time in Latin America, I guess?

Yes, since 1964.

It’s been a great life, really.

It sounds like it, Chris.

It sounds like you’ve made the most of it.

And thank you for sharing just this little bit of your hard-won wisdom with us.

Thank you.

It’s been a pleasure.

Have a great day.

Take care now.

Thanks, Chris.

Be well.

Thanks.

Bye-bye.

What’s the harshest word for embarrassment or shame that you can think of in English?

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