Spanish Word of the Day

Quote: theodores

Official Scrabble Players' Dictionary. Get it, and end all arguments.

Aren't the arguments the whole point of the game?

Quote: Nareed

Aren't the arguments the whole point of the game?

Possibly, but the Wizard prefers definitive answers.

The Internet Scrabble Club has several lists of words
TWL , SOWPODS , LOC , ODS , ZINGA , SWL

Two official English-language word sets:
TWL, which is used in the U.S., Canada, Thailand and Israel, and
SOWPODS, which is used for the rest of the world.

For multiple languages.
ODS for French,
LOC for Romanian,
ZINGA for Italian and
SWL for Dutch.

All of the lists include "taco" except for the Romanian one.

Taco means basically the same thing in all languages, except for Venetian where it means "heel". Venetian is only spoken by roughly 2 million people in Italy, Croatia, and Slovenia.

So we can pretty much conclude that "taco" has become an international word, even though it's roots were Latin American Spanish.

It is possible to be conjugation of the Spanish verb tacar which means "to be silent" or "to keep quiet". As always context would tell you if you are using a verb or a noun.

These are alternative definitions for the NOUN "taco" in Spanish (according to the dictionary)
1) peg (a short, thick piece of wood, metal, or other material)
2) dowel (a longer piece of wood, plastic, or other material)
3) stopper, plug, wad (small bundle of material made to cover, stop, or fill a hole)
4) cue (a stick used to play billiards, snooker, pool, etc)
5) (Chile) traffic jam
6) (Spain) a curse word, a swear word, a profanity, a slur

Maryann no preparar la cena porque ella está en huelga.

Before the strike


After the strike


¿Sabía usted sobre este cambio en la canción?

Quote: Pacomartin

¿Sabía usted sobre este cambio en la canción?

Sí, por supuesto lo se. Y no me gusta la segunda cancion, porque no menciona el profesor, mi carácter favorito.

Another favorite show of mine with changes in the theme song was the Facts of Life. You can see the two versions at http://www.lyricsondemand.com/tvthemes/thefactsoflifelyrics.html.

El profesor no se menciona, pero tampoco es Maryann.

Quote: Pacomartin

El profesor no se menciona, pero tampoco es Maryann.

Yo sé.

Quote: Wizard

Sí, por supuesto lo se.

So far so good.

Quote:

Y no me gusta la segunda cancion, porque no menciona el profesor, mi carácter favorito.

Now, the Spanish expression I'd use here would be "¿Tan bien que íbamos!"

So: "And I don't like the second song, because it doesn't mention a the proffesor, my favorite personality trait."

Well, not quite. But "carácter" in Spanish means "character" only as relates to personality. it does not mean a fictional charcater. the word for that is "personaje."

For all that, you did better than Paco. See the next post.

Quote: Pacomartin

El profesor no se menciona, pero tampoco es Maryann.

"The professor does not mention himself, but he's not Maryann either."

Quote: Nareed

"The professor does not mention himself, but he's not Maryann either."

OK, I screwed up.

La canción no mencionó el profesor o Maryann tampoco.

You may recall from my trip to San Jose del Cabo that I was annoying everybody about how to say "hot dog" in Spanish. I was better behaved in Costa Rica. However, I managed to start one argument without even trying.

It was late at night at the Cocal casino in Jaco, which at night is the local hot spot to find prostitutes. I was with a single friend from Vegas who wasn't shy about engaging in that service. He struck up a conversation with one in the casino. Eventually he wanted to smoke so asked her to resume the conversation on the beach, because smoking is strictly prohibited in public places in Costa Rica (bravo!).

So my friend was enjoying a conversation with her. As I recall, the phone of the girl rang and she took the call so my friend stood up and walked a short distance away to have another cigarette, because he had the courtesy to not smoke in her face. At this point, another prostitute started to try to make small talk with him. However, my friend wanted nothing to do with the second one, and asked me to say to her in Spanish, "Tell her my penis is the size of a match." I replied, "I don't know how to say 'match' in Spanish." He replied, "How can you not know that?!", because he had hear me torturing people with my awful Spanish the entire trip.

So, I asked the first girl, who spoke English fairly well, and was by then off the phone, how to say it. She replied, "cerilla." However, a third prostitute who spoke English overheard this and said in a sharp voice, "No, it is fósforo!" Then the two of them got into a slightly heated argument about which was the correct word. I think one of them was being territorial, and the other defensive. I'm told the Costa Rican prostitutes don't like ones from Nicaragua coming there to steal their customers.

Sorry to bore you with that story. Maybe you had to be there to appreciate it.