Read an Excerpt
REAL SPANISH EXPRESSIONS
FOR THE DARING
“CARAJO! SE LE METIO EL PURO DEMONIO EN ÉSTA SALSA!”
(Damn it! The very devil’s gotten into this sauce!)
“NO VALER UN DIABLO.”
(Good for nothing.)
“ME MATAS CON TU CARA DE PARAN-PAN-PIN!”
(You kill me with your slutty little face!)
“ME MUERO POR TU AMOR.”
(I die for your love.)
“SALVAME, DIOS! ME DESMAYO!”
(God, save me! I’m going to throw a fit!)
FRANCES DE TALAVERA BERGER has lived in Mexico, Spain, and Los Angeles, California—where she has never been at a loss for words. She is the author of Mierda! The REAL Spanish You Were Never Taught in School (Plume).
Frances de Talavera Berger
Illustrated by Kim Wilson Eversz
Preface
In basic unadulterated Spanish—no matter in how many countries it is spoken, no matter how florid the deviations or how varied the many, many dialects—más means more and mierda means shit. So (with neither a pretense toward scholarship, nor a scintilla of coyness) what we have here, then, is a fancifully lighthearted bookload of more shit!
But you already knew that, didn’t you? How? Because you can recall the humorous hard-core curses, colorful colloquialisms, and superb slang highlighted in the original, ¡MIERDA! The REAL Spanish You Were Never Taught in School. What’s that? You really can’t remember everything you learned in ¡MIERDA!? ¡Cabrón . . . ! Just teasing, so don’t work yourself into a tizz. It should all come back to you easily enough after only a few pages of this sequel. Trust me, all right?
The novice reader will quickly realize that, even along with that most crucial word, mierda, there are numerous other expressions and phrases, both nasty and nice, that are absolutely essential when you wish to communicate in streetwise, everyday Spanish. That’s what you really want, isn’t it—to grasp the meaning, to verbalize, and to be understood in the “common” language? But although Hispanics have raised swearing to the highest level of art, it is an unquestioned truism that what is called vulgarismo (slang) works best when combined with great body gestures, succulent sounds, and, above all, nuances of palabra y cuerpo (word and body). ¡MIERDA! introduced you to these marvelous Latino characteristics; now we will go a step beyond to the how and why. How did the Spanish language evolve with such zest? Why do natives adore twisting words and meanings—cleverly turning the obvious into playful obscenities, or the grim and sacred into outright devilry? Quixotic behavior follows in the same (seemingly) maniacal manner. For instance, why do “old” men (who are actually young men in skillful disguises) believe they will shorten their time in purgatory if they dance, stomp, and screech on graves? How do they know when to curse your mother—¡Ay, por Dios!—or when it is so much more evil to curse your father? Why do some stubbornly still pray in Latin, while others are as thoroughly convinced that saints understand only a Spanish-laced misbegotten tongue vaguely akin to, if anything, an erratic form of Esperanto? And then there are those who slowly roll their eyes heavenward (a very typical Hispanic habit) and explain (yet again, politely, con mucha calma—up to a point, anyway) that the possible slaughter of man and/or beast in a bullring has nothing to do with values (whatever the gagging, horrified turista may think!) precisely because the spectacle is not a sport. . . .
What is the gist of el alma hispanica (the Spanish soul)? Spirit may be the first quality that comes to mind; temperament, for sure; humor, most definitely. The primary ingredient, however, must be diversity: language, grace, refinement, love of ritual from the Spaniards—the same elegant folks, perversely, who gave us that ultimate showstopper, the Inquisition’s fiery auto de fe; soft, luscious speech patterns from Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the other Islands; pragmatism peppered with irreverence from Mexico; mystery from Peru; drama from Argentina; further multiethnicity from the Philippines; brash energy from an abundance of barrios in the U.S.
Palabra, cuerpo, y alma. Word, body, and soul. Now you have a hint at what to expect. There will be words, conversations, reviews, painless little tests (I promise), body actions (literally and figuratively), and insight (I hope) from background tales. So settle down into a receptive Latino mood, get the body free and loose, don’t forget to bring along your brightest sense of humor, and let’s go—one more time.
A Brushup on Helpful Hints
In ¡MIERDA! abbreviations noted the geographical source of most of the vernacular. Today, however, many terms once quite unique to particular dialects have become crossovers, thanks to increasing intercultural travel and easy access to worldwide media. Still, some words remain strikingly localized. In such cases usage will be identified as follows: Spain = SPN; Mexico = MX; Puerto Rico = PR; Panama = PAN; Cuba = CU; Central America = C AMR; West Indies = W IND; Peru = PE; Colombia = COL; Argentina = ARG; the Philippines = PH; Southern California = SOCAL; Spanglish = SPNGL.
When a word or phrase “loses something in translation,” both the exact equivalent and a more readable explanation will appear.
Asterisks are at times more of a distraction than they are helpful tools. Surely many readers experience the frustration of having to search all over the page (or, worse, the entire book) for a follow-up reference—only to realize that the hunt might take as long as the average allotted life span. Nothing so complicated will happen here, however; here, the use of asterisks is stripped to bare essentials: one (*) means the preceding word or phrase is moderately dirty, while two (**) means the word is very, very dirty. Easy, right? Still, whether you’re inclined to (*) or (**), please do remember that talking dirty is most fun (and far safer) when spoken cleverly, playfully, and with a good sense of what Hispanic humor is really all about.
All right, it’s fantasy time! While almost everyone will agree that nothing tops being there (with deeply digested copies of ¡MIERDA! and ¡MÁS MIERDA! in hand, one hopes), travels in the mind, for some, are almost as fulfilling. For one thing, daydreaming costs nothing but idle seconds; for another, wishes are rarely stressful, crowded, unseasonal, or disappointing.
