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Re:Re:Re:Goodbye slang
I see this expression Carmen refers to, "te wacho" a lot in hispanic North American slang. A little research I did on the Internet suggests it's a Spanglish expression. I've seen it written as "ay te wacho," "hay te wacho," and "alli te wacho." I lean towards the last one because I got it from a Mexican US journalist who was both formally educated and fluent in Spanglish. It felt like he was a pretty solid source. But it comes from the English word, "watch," as in, to keep an eye on, conjugated as a Spanish verb, "I watch you" -- te wacho. So I guess "Alli te wacho" is like saying I'm watching out for you.
Of course, I'm on the outside looking in. Any Spanglish speakers out there want to straighten us out?
Mark Springer
Sacramento, CA USA
Reply to message # 48997
Re:Re:Goodbye slang Carmen Claudia
In Spain, you can also say for GOODBYE: Hasta otra, hasta pronto, hasta la vista. (We don't say "ay te wacho")
This is a reply to message # 737
Language pair: English; Spanish
Category: Slang/Expressions
Post date: April 4, 2005
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Language pair: English; Spanish
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Mark S.
April 5, 2005
# Msgs: 11
Latest: March 18, 2012
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Ever heard of a "mondegreen?"
Mondegreen
"Blinded by the light!
Wrapped up like a douche in on a runner in the night…."
I knew that couldn't possibly be right, but I'd listened to the song a gajillion times, and I was never able to make any more sense of it than that. It's got to be a "mondegreen," a misheard song lyric. It's been driving me insane since some no-name band scored a megahit with this silly song thirty years ago. And the singing on it is so hard to make out, you can search the net and find a dozen or so more mondegreens from this one line by various listeners: "Wrapped up like a deuce, another motor in the night." "Wrapped up like the douchins of a roamer in the night." "Took off like the juice, another roller in the night."
Today, with the magic of the Internet search engine, it's easy as pi to find out that the actual lyric sung by Manfred Mann, the group who made this song popular, was, "Wrapped up like a deuce, another runner in the night." Of course, the fact that most of the misheard versions made more sense than the actual lyric goes a long way towards explaining the mass of mondegreens this lyric has generated.
According to Evan Morris, "The Word Detective,"(one of my favorite sources for fascinating information on where expressions in English come from, and easy to find with any search engine), the expression "mondegreen" comes from a classic example from an old Scottish Ballad, "The Bonny Earl of Murray." It seems that in 1954, the writer Sylvia Wright thought that one of the lines in the poem went, "They hae slay the Earl of Murray, and Lady Mondegreen." Keen to discover who this unfortunate and mysterious "Lady Mondegreen" might be, Ms. Wright was terribly embarrassed, as we all might imagine, when she finally learned that there was never any such person; the lyric in fact read, "They hae slay the Earl of Murray and LAID HIM ON THE GREEN."
So since 1954, the term "mondegreen" has been used to describe any incorrect idea of what a lyric is supposed to say. Such as Jimmi Hendrix's ever famous, "Excuse me while I kiss this guy!" ("Excuse me while I kiss THE SKY").
I'll bet you all know some good ones. Do we want to post them in Jokes, Games, or in Music/Dance? I'm sure you'll figure it out. Have fun!
Mark Springer
Sacramento, CA USA
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Language pair: English; All
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Mark S.
April 5, 2005
# Msgs: 2
Latest: April 6, 2005
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Aya
April 4, 2005
# Msgs: 1
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Re:Hey People!
wo3 bu4 zhi1 dao4 ni3 xiang3 liao2 sha2? bu2 guo4 wo3 zhu4 zhai4 xia4 wei1 yi2 wo3 men5 ye2 xu3 ke3 yi3 chong2 zhe4 kai1 shi3?
I don't know what topic you are interested in? Well, I live in Hawaii. Maybe we can start from here...... ciao
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Language pair: English; Chinese, Mandarin
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Outcast
March 27, 2005
# Msgs: 2
Latest: March 27, 2005
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Problemas en Skype
Hola Mary,
Favor de buscar mi mensaje en Internet Technology. Allí sera de más ayuda si otros tienen el mismo problema....
Mark
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Language pair: Spanish; English
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Mark S.
March 26, 2005
# Msgs: 3
Latest: March 26, 2005
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Re:Comment to Newlife-Wang on expression
Hi Mark
Soy Mary Aponte, de Venezuela. Cuando puedas vuelve a registrarte en Slype...No se porque has desaparecido de mis contactos, parece que me hubiese bloqueado. Hasta luego,
Mary (americamary)
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Language pair: English; All
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maryjaponte l.
March 25, 2005
# Msgs: 3
Latest: March 26, 2005
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Comment to Newlife-Wang on expression
Hi,
I'm not familiar with the expression, "Greenhand," and I was wondering if you meant "greenhorn," an expression which means inexperienced, or just learning.
According to the Word Detective, an internet resource I find to be wonderfully helpful for trying to understand a lot of our strange expressions, "Greenhorn" is a real mixed metaphor. "Green" is often used in botany to refer to fruit that is not yet ripe, and therefore immature or young. Somehow, this expression came to be applied by analogy to describe young cattle whose horns were green, not literally, but figuratively. So that, I guess, is why a greenhorn is "a newbie" or a "tyro". My favorite expression for this is "still wet behind the ears" suggesting that the person was born earlier today and hasn't yet had time for all of the amniotic fluid to dry off in the less exposed parts of their body. Sometimes, when we want to emphasize that we're NOT greenhorns, we say things like, "I wasn't born yesterday," or "I didn't just fall off the cabbage truck, you know."
That cabbage truck expression is also pretty strange if you're not familiar with our tradition of explaining reproduction to young children. Many of us are very uncomfortable talking about this topic with children, and so we make up myths about it until we think they're old enough to tell them the truth. In the old days, we used to wait until their wedding day, but since we’ve finally figured out that their friends will tell them if we don’t do it first, and since most of us want to have some control over what our children learn about sex, we try to tell them around the time some of their friends are going to start developing an interest, somewhere between 11 and 14, I think. Others may want to correct me if I’m wrong, since I’ve never been a parent. One of our best-known myths is that babies are found under cabbage leaves. That should explain the expression about falling off the cabbage truck. It’s like saying, “I wasn’t just born a moment ago.”
I found a very cute joke about this, the second of three jokes posted in message 42499. French isn’t one of my stronger languages, but I’ll try to post a reasonable translation into the English over in the Vocabulary/Translations area, in case you’re interested and don’t speak French.
Good luck on your search for a partner. In the mean time, please feel free to post anywhere on this site if you have any questions about English that I might help with.
Zhu4 ni3 hao3!
Mark Springer
Sacramento, CA USA
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Language pair: English; All
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Mark S.
March 24, 2005
# Msgs: 3
Latest: March 26, 2005
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Newlife-Wang re Greenhand/Greenhorn
Hi,
I'm not familiar with the expression, "Greenhand," and I was wondering if you meant "greenhorn," an expression which means inexperienced, or just learning.
According to the Word Detective, a resource I find to be wonderfully helpful for trying to understand a lot of our strange expressions, "Greenhorn" is a real mixed metaphor. "Green" is often used in botany to refer to fruit that is not yet ripe, and therefore immature or young. Somehow, this expression came to be applied by analogy to describe young cattle whose horns were green, not literally, but figuratively. So that, I guess, is why a greenhorn is "a newbie" or a "tyro". My favorite expression for this is "still wet behind the ears" suggesting that the person was born earlier today and hasn't yet had time for all of the amniotic fluid to dry off in the less exposed parts of their body. Sometimes, when we want to emphasize that we're NOT greenhorns, we say things like, "I wasn't born yesterday," or "I didn't just fall off the cabbage truck, you know."
That cabbage truck expression is also pretty strange if you're not familiar with our tradition of explaining reproduction to young children. Many of us are very uncomfortable talking about this topic with children, and so we make up myths about it until we think they're old enough for us to tell them the truth. In the old days, we used to wait until their wedding day, but since we’ve finally figured out that their friends will tell them if we don’t do it first, and since most of us want to have come control over what our children learn about sex, we try to tell them around the time some of their friends are going to start developing an interest, somewhere between 11 and 14, I think. Others may want to correct me if I’m wrong, since I’ve never been a parent. One of our most well-known myths is that babies are found under cabbage leaves. That should explain the expression about falling off the cabbage truck. It’s the same thing as saying, “I wasn’t just born a moment ago.”
I found a very cute joke about this, the second of three jokes posted in message 42499. French isn’t one of my stronger languages, but I’ll try to post a reasonable translation into the English over in the Vocabulary/Translations area, in case you’re interested and don’t speak French.
Good luck on your search for a partner. In the mean time, please feel free to post anywhere on this site if you have any questions about English that I might help with.
Zhu4 ni3 hao3!
Mark Springer
Sacramento, CA USA
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Language pair: English; All
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Mark S.
March 24, 2005
# Msgs: 1
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Re:Hey People!
I live in america, so I could help you a bit with the slang, what kind of slang do you want to know? What is your native language?
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Language pair: English; All
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Jonathon S.
March 22, 2005
# Msgs: 2
Latest: March 27, 2005
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Great expression for "From bad to Worse" in Spanish
It was recently brought to my attention that Spanish Speakers may say, "Salir de Guatemala y meterse en Guatapeor," meaning, "From bad to worse,"
It's a great punny expression, because it takes advantage of the fact that the word "bad" "mala" is part of the word "Guatamala." and you make a fun play on words by subustituting the word, "peor", "worse" for "Mala", "bad." If you had to translate it, it would be, Leaving Guata- "bad" to go to Guata- "Worse".
Of course, some expreessions just don't translate well, and must just be left in their own languages.
:-)
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Language pair: Spanish; English
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Mark S.
March 6, 2005
# Msgs: 1
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