While living in San Diego, one of my continuous sources of amusement was to listen to the way that you Gringos creatively managed to mangle my native language. As Southern California is peppered all throughout with Spanish and landmarks and sites. I have found that some go from the amusing the hilarious, to the infuriating.
The Infuriating:
O.K. If you want to use Spanish for your Real Estate development fancy, PLEASE-PLEASE-PLEASE, use good grammar. That, IS a pet peeve of mine. In the nearby seaside village of Del Mar, there is a boulevard called Via De La Valle. O.K., in Spanish Valle (Valley), is a masculine noun. Thus, any articles referring to it must agree in number and gender. La, is correct in number (is singular) but NOT in gender. La is feminine. Thus, the correct name for that boulevard should be Via Del Valle. Now, the fathers of the city may have wanted to say it in Italian. Valle in Italian is feminine, but the usage of the articles again, would be all wrong. In Italian the correct usage would have been Via Della Valle. Nah - They wanted to be cute about their prowess in Spanish and failed all over. Grammatical manglings like that, were all over. So many time I just had to grin and bear the quiet insults to my sensibilities.
The Amusing:
I could name many, but one that stick out is Tranca Canyon. I don't know why they chose Tranca to name that canyon, but Tranca in Spanish is that long sturdy iron pole that was used to stop the spinning gears in a grist mil. You would stick the pole in between the cogs, and the mill would come to a stop. Tranca is also one of the many names that is given to that *er* male member, when it is eagerly waiting in anticipation for a happy ending. Since now a days there aren't many grist mills around, Tranca is mainly used as reference to the latter anatomical feature.
The Hilarious:
The city right up the road where I used to live is called El Cajón. In English it means The Crate (as in wooden packing crate). The grammar is used correctly, though I've come to accept that the "o" will not be accentuated. What is hilarious to me is on how you Gringos pronounce it. Below is a clip made by a local citizen where he continuously pronounce in a typical manner throughout the video.
You will say, BOQ - What's funny about it? You see, the way Gringos enunciate their vowels, the "a" in Cajón is pronounced all closed-up. Thus from your lips, El Cajón, sounds like El Cojón, in my Spic ears. Almost always this noun is used in its plural form - Los Cojones. Unless you of course, you are referring to Lance Armstrong, then you use the singular form El Cojón.
Which brings me to the reason for this blogpost. Yesterday, the former Governor of our 49th State, said that the current Governor of our 48th State has more Cojones, than our current President.
Was Gov. Palin refering to our President's lack of testicular fortitude, or the fact that he soon will need some Heavy Wooden Packing Crates to move himself out of The White House?
Boq
