Is this one better, Carlos?
It seemed better to me, but my Spanish is worse than my French and my French is nearly non-existent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYMx-3ogn3Q
I took Level 1 Spanish (Castilian, not the Caribbean vernacular so well known in NYC). Three years in a row. Sadder than McKinley's Funeral...even the horses cried.
When I was driving a cab, I had a few lame words and phrases I could deploy, and Hispanic people in NYC were always so gracious and grateful for a gringo to be respectful enough to even offer up a few lame phrases, but having lived in Hispanic nabes since I arrived in NYC in 1976, I always founbd the disrespect accorded Puerto Ricans and Dominicans and Cubans really grating. "SPEAK ENGLISH." Fuck YOU--Their English is one hell of a lot better than your Spanish, MF.
Anyway, I maneuvered them in to a corny joke which always got an appreciative laugh.
"Tu hablas Espanol?"
[Forgive the spelling]
"No, no, no...muy nada--muy pacquito. Hola Isabel, como estas? Donde esta la biblioteca?
VAS A INFERNO, PENDEJO.
My punchline was originally maricone, but that seemed a little strong, and saying pendejo is more like a Jew saying schmuck.
I learned the term pendejo, because the streets in NYC are [were] fairly crowded, and it was not uncommon for people to brush up against each other. One afternoon on 181st Street, apparently I brushed up against an older Hispanic brother, and he took offense. Next thing I know, he was jabbing his finger into my chest. "When you hit somebody, you are supposed to say excuse me." SIR, WOULD YOU PLEASE TAKE YOUR FINGER OFF OF MY CHEST. When he jabbed me again, I slapped him upside his face. He started coming towards me, and I held up my hand in a the STOP SIGN gesture, that is to say, YOU DON'T WANT TO GO THERE.
I felt like a jerk for allowing things to escalate to such a degree over something so petty, but you do not lay your hands upon another man in Washington Heights.
When I got to my taxi garage for the shape up, I asked a Dominican driver, what I might be able to say en espanol to let someone know that I was from the street, too, and to downshift from a confrontation.
"Call him a maricone."
WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?
"Faggot."
WHOA, I'M NOT GOING TO CALL A HISPANIC MALE A FAGGOT. I"M TRYING TO DEESCALATE< NOT START WORLD WAR 3. HAVE YOU GOT SOMETHING A BIT SOFTER?
"Call him a quica face."
MEANING?
"Pussy face."
NO, YOU'RE NOT FEELING ME. SOMETHING MORE FRATERNAL, LIKE WHEN A JEW CALLS ANOTHER JEW A SCHMUCK OR A PUTZ.
"Ah, call him a
pendejo."
He was not really clear on what that meant, and at some latter point, I was told that pendejo referred to the tiny hairs in your butt crack.
CARE TO WEIGH IN ON THIS, Senor Carlos?
As for FRENCH?
Decided to try it for my first semester freshman requirement at college.
It did NOT go well.
For my final exam, I showed up with a six pack of beer, an acknowledgement of the inevitable. When an elderly proctor took note of my morning mourning, I indicated that the end results were a
fait accompli, which some 50 years later, it now occurs to me, was a snippet of French, correct in context and meaning.
Poll
