Dutch prince surprises Mexicans with rude slang

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Deutsche Presse-Agentur

Dutch prince surprises Mexicans with rude slang
Americas News
Nov 5, 2009, 15:44 GMT

Mexico City
- Prince Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands made Mexicans laugh with his use of Mexican slang that many mothers would have scolded their children for using, the media reported Thursday.

At a meeting with representatives of the energy sector Wednesday, the prince used the phrase, 'camaron que se duerme se lo lleva la chingada,' an expression that could roughly be translated as 'the shrimp that falls asleep is carried away by the current.'

Willem-Alexander, 42, meant to tell his audience that there is no time to waste in the effort to strive for energy efficiency and boost renewable energy sources.

However, 'chingada' is considered a very rude word in Mexican Spanish, meaning 'prostitute' among a wide range of uses: it can be used to tell someone to go to hell, to say that one is feeling bad or that something has gone wrong. Indeed, in the phrase that Willem-Alexander used the word is often replaced by euphemistic substitutes.




Read more: http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/americas/news/ar...

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Prince Willem-Alexander

[Flaneur]

1. !Que chingon!

[MineralMan]

6. De veras!

[LuckyLib]

2. And you hear some variation of "chingar" everywhere in Mexico.

Like the US, popular culture has grown more crude and more rude -- in the same way we hear the F-bomb in many a public place, same goes in Mexico.

[EFerrari]

4. I never heard that word in my home. Had one of us said it

my grandmother would have had a heart attack. LOL -- it pretty much stayed 1895 in our house until 1975.

[MineralMan]

3. I grew up hearing every variation of 'chingar,' so

it's nothing to me.

We gringos adopted the word, in an anglicized form, creating the verb "to chunger", which means, basically, to fuck up. As in: I chungered my knee when I fell off the ladder.

This was commonly used in Southern CA in the early 1960s, but seems to have passed away with time.

I added this to the Urban Dictionary last year.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=chunger

[MineralMan]

5. For a full explanation of the usage of 'chingar,'

See this Urban Dictionary page:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=chingar

[RedCloud]

7. Chusma no joda.

Boca e mierda.

[MineralMan]

8. Cuban or Puerto Rican?

Am I right to translate that to "don't fuck with me, asshole?" More or less...

[maglatinavi]

22. In Puerto Rico

the word chingar is very crude and rude, in Mexico "chingar" is used every day and by every one meaning, working, passing time, doing things, don't bother me, etc. (No me chingues, cabron) It is not taken badly as in PR. Kudos to the Prince!!! He is right, "camaron que se duerme se lo lleva la corriente" ... "la chingada" ... surely, inmediate action is necessary ...

[MineralMan]

32. My Spanish is not terrific, although I can get along pretty well...

Funny story: My wife and I spent a week at a little resort near Playa del Carmen before we got married. Back then, as now, I had a full beard and pretty long hair. We got along well with everyone at the resort, and it was all-inclusive, so two meals a day were served in the on-site dining area.

On the last full day we were there, we were having breakfast. My coffee cup was empty, and I heard one of the servers tell another one, right near my table, "Mas cafe por el cabron." I got my coffee poured right away, and thanked the server with a couple of sentences of my best Spanish. Was he ever embarrassed. We all laughed about it, though.

I figured they were playing off the root of the word, which means goat, based on my beard, because I was always polite and friendly in the dining room.

[timo]

9. ????

I thought it meant the sleeping shrimp gets F%^$#@ked

[MineralMan]

10. Yah, pretty much.

There's danger in asking someone for a colloquial expression to use in your speech. Jokes are played. Then, you will be truly chigado!

[Throd]

11. That is how I read it.

[a la izquierda]

12. caray!

[treestar]

13. Maybe someone led him astray

Reminds me of "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" where the Greeks told the nonGreek certain words meant something like "everyone, come into the house" and he said it and it really meant "I have three testicles."

[Maestro]

14. Wow!

Why the hell would he say something like that? In what context?

[damntexdem]

17. Well, he probably wanted everyone to come into the house.

Maybe to see those three testicles.

[DavidDvorkin]

15. Different connotation in Spain, I assume?

Presumably he's more familiar with Spanish as spoken in Spain.

[Throd]

16. Never heard the verb "chingar" in Spain

[AllTooEasy]

19. and that's probably the source of the controversy

I've been told by Mexican-American friends that there are many words/phrases in Spain that have ENTIRELY DIFFERENT meanings in Mexico and the rest of Latin America. I can't recall specific ones, but I have a similiar English scenario. I remember the first time I heard a friend in Malaysia (former British colony) say that he wanted to "Go outside and smoke a fag". I was APPALLED! ...until I later figured out that a 'fag' is a cigarette.

[Xipe Totec]

21. No, somebody played a joke on him

Typical Mexican humor (messing with the gullible).

I did the same thing to a guy from Turkey when I was in college. He wanted to impress a girl by speaking Spanish. He asked me how to say "You are very pretty". I told him: "Por cuanto rechina el catre" (How much to make the cot squeak). Sure enough he tried it and got his face slapped six ways from Sunday.

[maglatinavi]

23. Xipe Totec!!!

That was mean! However, I have never heard that expresion...

[Art_from_Ark]

40. Some Japanese guys did the same thing to me

When I was first learning Japanese, they said I could impress Japanese girls by saying "Watashi wa sukebe ("skay-bay") desu". So I said it to a Japanese girl I had met and her face turned red. I found out later that I had told her that I was a lecher.

Then there was the time some Norwegian skiers told me I could impress Nordic women by saying "Bula deg"

Moral of the story-- Never ask a foreign guy how to impress women from his country.

[Ignis]

44. ...

Looks like it's time to publish our own "poetic" Mexican phrasebook.

http://video.google.com/s/RRTWThPsLH4/googleplayer.swf?...

http://www.serve.com/bonzai/monty/classics/TheHungarian...

[Piewhacket]

18. Hi cous (hes a distant relative). German royal house side.

willem (in the photo) is the current Prince of Orange.
he's first in line of succession, heir to the throne.

he'll be personally worth about 6 billion when that happens.
that would be PERSONAL wealth.

a pittance, the poor kid, but don't cry for him, for like an
iceberg, we only get to see the tip of the real wealth, and
only what they want to show us. wealth has its privileges, y'know.

current generations have a decent rep as decent people,
but there is a a rough bunch of folks in his ancestry, believe me.
not 'evil' exactly, such terms lose their meaning in the struggle
for great power, but I can suggest 'masters of the world' is not
exactly a title for either pansies, or the squeamish.
nobody to cross. I got a pretty good idea.

Hey willie, what's doin?

[maglatinavi]

24. the prince

He is very handsome!!!

[Piewhacket]

27. heh... his pretty wife thinks so too.. married in 2002, 3 daughters (she supports LGBT rights)

[cmkramer]

30. His wife is from Argentina

Incidentally, he'll be the first Dutch King in well over a hundred years. One of his aunts married a Cuban man although they are now divorced. Another married a Spanish prince who was a rival claimant for the throne of Spain. It's sort of like the Stuarts vs. the Hanovers.

Also, since The Netherlands now has absolute primogeniture (the oldest child inherits the throne regardless of gender) his oldest daughter will succeed him.

[Piewhacket]

47. yup. I might be in the line of succession... about 28,367,446,201th or so.

maybe less. I think there are less people than that
in the world, so I'd say I was right up there with a shot
at it.

Did I mention great-granddaddy was assassinated for refusing to
toast the kaiser at a dinner? In NY. Just before wwi.
So I was told by his daughter, my great aunt, when I was 10.
At his level declining to toast the kaiser's war machine wasn't
really an optional activity, apparently. Seriously, a ruthless crowd.

Great grandmother became fearful of continuing reprisal, especially
against the young twins, my grandfather and his brother, and
conferred with the other nine children on how to protect them.
So my great aunt explained, as the tears welled in her old eyes.

My family was not alone. Other close relatives were in 'disfavor'.
I think two died leading their troops against impossible fortifications.
Two... in the first week. Two princes of the same royal house.
What an incredible coincidence! ALL the world rocked at the news.
Such are the wages of power and its instrumentality, war.

the twins, underage , changed their names and enlisted...
in the US army and against Germany. To avenge their father.
How droll, they were more "german" than the germans they fought.
So one returned. The other lies in flanders fields.

Of course, everyone was related. Of course. What else?
But then, what family, whether great or small, doesn't have
its little ups and downs.

So long ago, but the line continues.
That is all that matters.

[Xipe Totec]

20. The correct saying is:

'camaron que se duerme se lo lleva la corriente'

Shrimp that fall asleep are carried away by the current.


Swapping chingada for corriente changes the meaning to:


Shrimp that fall asleep get fucked.

[vanbean]

25. Not quite. It means more like "Shrimp that fall asleep are swept away by the fucking".

[Xipe Totec]

26. You are speaking to a native Mexican

doing a word-for-word translation won't get you very far.

It's just like in Boston, where "wicked good" does not mean "evil good".

[SpiralHawk]

28. Wicked good means 'pissah' as any propah Bastonian could tell you.

Wicked pissah good.

[Xipe Totec]

31. Go Sox!

[Capn Sunshine]

33. que pasa amigo

I think many Americans go wrong with word for word translation , but moreover, around Costa Rica that phrase means to me "Sleeping shrimp end up totally screwed" with the implication being swept away, which is understood, which is another thing Americans don't quite grasp, that phrases in Latin America often have an underlying state which it is presumed everyone understands without saying. Implied in this case by the use of the verb "llevar"

To quote my old sergeant from Teguce "explicando a los heuros, ni lo intentes."

[Xipe Totec]

35. Ahi nomas, pasandola

> Latin America often have an underlying state which it is presumed everyone understands without saying

Quite right, the social and cultural context is critical to understanding.

Phrases like:

Ojo que no ve... (when the eye does not see...)

(Palo dado...) (A blow, once landed...)

(Mejor solo...) (Better alone...)


Strangely enough we went through something similar here at DU last night, with a visitor who's first language was not English, but German. He was totally lost and befufddled by some of the replies to his posts because he did not have the cultural context to understand them.

Phrases like:

Oh, that changes everything!

[itcfish]

41. ¡ Joder !

Finally somebody got it right mi "manito"

[skipos]

29. Joder!

I only know naughty spanish words.

[skoalyman]

34. the shrimp that falls asleep is carried away by the prostitute

[Capn Sunshine]

36. Isn't that always the way?

Never let the whores near the shrimp buffet.

[Blue_Tires]

37. should have said "Dave's not here, man..."

[Octafish]

39. He had to...He had to...He had to re-primer the Jeep.

Remember. Deputy Dan es su amigo.

[Octafish]

38. ¡¿Que pende ja?!

No parece cer hijo de una mala madre.

[Bombero1956]

42. Cabrone is used in Mexico an awful lot

judging from watching George Lopez's comedy specials. In Mexico it isn't considered as bad a word as it is in Puerto Rico where if you call a man that name be prepared to get your ass kicked.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

43. El Stupido

no sabe nada eh?

[demo dutch]

45. The guy is a baffoon, and that's coming from a Dutchman

[SKKY]

46. Joder! La puta que le pario!

[roody]

48. Huey puta!

[Darth_Kitten]

49. He's not known for being very bright.

n/t

[Name removed]

50. Deleted message

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