I just finished reading the
node Dutch Profanity: Categories and Usage and felt that a similar attempt should be made for the
Spanish language of
Puerto Rico. I am not a
native speaker and hope that others, more familar with
Spanish, will add to the
node and to my
education. The best I can do is present a few
anecdotes with an apology to those who know the
language better than I.
bicho
I'm not certain why this word should jump into my
mind first --
male chauvinism perhaps. In
Puerto Rico this is the most common
word for
penis. Elsewhere in the Spanish-speaking world the word means
insect - which leads to some rather
humorous situations.
I taught at a private
Catholic high school for the
flower of Puerto Rican
boyhood. On one occasion, we were visited by a
Spanish bishop who was touring the
New World. In his address to the 300 or so boys in a special
assembly, he observed that he had just come from
Mexico where they had
insects bigger than he had ever seen before. Of course, to the boys he was saying he had never seen such big dicks, confirming what they already
suspected about
men who didn't
marry and who wore
dresses. The bishop's remark caused
howls of
laughter, stomping
feet and
catcalls. Every time the
riot would subside, one kid would
titter and they would break up again. Finally the assembly was called off and the
holy brothers drew lots as to who was going to tell His Excellency the cause of disturbance.
The most common word for
penis I heard in the
Dominican Republic was
pinga and the word
verga seemed to be the favorite in
Mexico. In a
dictionary of Puerto Rican
slang, which I have lost some where in my travels, there were at least twice as many words for
penis as there there were for
vagina. Now, that tells you something, but I'm not certain exactly what.
chocha
This word I've never seen in print, but I've heard it often enough. A
synonym I heard less frequently is
krika, and I'm uncertain of the official spelling. A
linquistic curiosity here is a word I'm told is derived from
krika. A really big mess in Puerto Rico is often called a
revolú but sometimes a
krikal, which I suppose might be translated "a big vagina." A couple times I heard
bala used in reference to
female genitalia, which suggests to me "ball," but an
informant assures me that it is derived from the form in which bread is sometimes baked. That I have to take on faith.
Miscellaneous
I suppose I can add a few
anecdotes of how I learned some useful cuss words.
cojones
Almost the first word I learned in Puerto Rico. I was waiting on a
busy street corner and just couldn't seem to find a break in the traffic. Finally one driver leaned out the window and shouted, "
Hay que tener cojones" which means, "You gotta have
balls."
tetas
I was familiar with this word but turned red in a bakery shop in south west Puerto when a
proper lady asked for
tetas de pan, which turned out to be a round
loaf of
bread with a
nipple in the center.
culo
(= Eng. ass) as opposed to
nalgas (= Eng. buttocks). I was in the
farmer's
market and overheard a very
elegant lady request
"Dáme dos rompes, por favor!" (= Eng. Give me two "breakers", please). The farmer dropped two
squat but
fat brownish red bananas into a bag and the lady left. With my
filthy mind, I thought "breaker" referred to the size of the fruit, when possibly inserted into the
culo. I was partly right, as I found out, because the full name of the fruit is
rompe culo (Eng = ass breaker) but the lady was too
polite to utter the word
culo in
public.
I had never seen them before and wanted to try them. So I
echoed the request, asking for six of them, instead of two. I took my
purchase home and tested one. It was so delicious I ate three more. The next morning I learned how the fruit got its name. During the
night I had released so much
gas that the
sheet hovered about four inches above the
bed. When I threw off the sheet, the smell left no doubt as to which
orifice the gas used to escape. I had wicked
cramps and stirred up a minor
hurricane in the
toilet bowl when I tried to
relieve the
pressure. Obviously, the ass was broken from the inside and not outside.