Old Dichos Never Die

[KeyWestPirate]

Trying to run down the precise meaning of Mas Sabe El Diablo . . I embarked on a maze of Nicaragan slang terms and dichos.

An old TRN post from 2009 by the Cigar Fisherman came up, actually several.
I tried to bump it, with no luck. This,, and about fifty others:
Cañanbuco person, is one who uses no Cansoncillos/underwear.
The mexicans would say, "Andar En cuero"
So Andar Cañanbuco(a) means, you are not wearing underwear/panties, kinda like Sharon Stone in Basic Instincts,ella Andaba Cañanbuca

It's not that I really need to ask, at my age, if someone is going commando, it's just that I really enjoy the richness of the language.




We need an Elks 11th Hour Sticky, those who have gone before us. Many come to Nicaragua, to the astonishment of family and friends, and in some cases, spouses, to fight the good fight on our terms,, and like Doniston, to die with our boots on.

Others come looking for flojos vestidos and zorras, some the cheap rum and cheap living.
Whatever, it beats sitting in a rocker, watching old westerns, feeling useless.

Why not come to Nicaragua and actually BE useless ??


A riqueza of phrases, some not usable in polite society. My favorite, which I am dying to use, is
Me Vale Verga,,
I don't give a shit!

I could have used it at Pelosi's Impeachment News Conference this morning.

The TRN post actually came up via a google search, proving the efficiency of google,, and the truth that nothing on the internet ever actually dies.

I finally found Mas Sabe el Diablo here,, along with any number that apply to the Ortegas


https://www.laprensa.com.ni/2014/04/...iduria-popular

One in particular,, A cada chancho le llega su sabado

[RGV AG]

That is for sure my favorite Spanish saying. I love it, it is so GD true.

Not so much a saying, but the same woman, she is older and the mother of one of my former employees in Managua, who told me the "Diablo/Viejo" one also cut loose with a remark that I have since used about 5000 times. Circa 2008 we took several employees and some foreign employees to SJDS for a long weekend. One of the women took this lady, her mother, as she had 2 kids and of course was flying solo mommy style as do many Nicaraguan women. I had gotten a great rate on a 4/BR house with an attached apartment through VRBO or something, it was going to sleep about 15 Nicaraguan/Mexicans/Hondurans/Filipino's and a few kids, and all was good.

Well as luck would have it it rained a MF'ing gullywash for like a day and during the day we were getting to SJDS, well I had a 4WD truck and in the best macho Texan spirit that I posses I was gonna make that GD house come hell, or very likely, high water. Ain't no mud puddle gonna defeat a Texas boy with 4WD, no matter the hill. Somehow I ended up with the older mom in my truck and the two kids. Well the mud puddle didn't defeat me, but a damm dump truck stuck down about 8" above the axle's in the only road in and out sure did. Stopped me hard and fast. I have no idea how those dumb bastards could have sunk a truck like that, it had to have been a concerted effort. It looked like the Jolly Green Giant had taken his heel and pushed that truck, which was full of gravel mind you, straight down. They may never have gotten that thing unstuck. The only thing that might have freed that dump truck was erosion on a massive scale. GraveDigger and BigFoot could not have pulled that dump truck out.

So we turned around and after a fiasco and 3/4" I ended up getting some hotel rooms in SJDS. Sitting around the dinner table that night the old lady is talking about the days adventures and looks over askance at me and says "Unicamente un gringo hubiera alquilado una casa que quedaba en el fundillo del diablo". About 20 people nearly peed their pants laughing. So true.

[el duende grande]

Gravel trucks sink real good. Saw one in out neighborhood on a sunny day in the dry season. Dummy hit a water leak in the road. He spend hours trying to drive/dig it out. Finally they broke out some shovels and off loaded the gravel and then had another truck pull them out.

[KeyWestPirate]

" . . .Unicamente un gringo hubiera alquilado una casa que quedaba en el fundillo del diablo".



Only a gringo would have rented a house stuck in the devil's ass ??

I think that I might be missing some subtlety in "quedaba"

[Little Corn Tom]

Gravel trucks sink real good. Saw one in out neighborhood on a sunny day in the dry season. Dummy hit a water leak in the road. He spend hours trying to drive/dig it out. Finally they broke out some shovels and off loaded the gravel and then had another truck pull them out.

I remember my brother while working his way through college, managed to get a part time job driving gravel trucks. Second day on the job, he took a corner too fast and dumped the whole load (truck too) on the main road through town during rush hour, blocking both lanes of traffic.
Oddly, the next day the company announced a layoff....him. He went on to become a missile launch officer in the Air Force.

[drlemcor]

Only a gringo would have rented a house stuck in the devil's ass ??

I think that I might be missing some subtlety in "quedaba"

I didn't know that definition of fundillo. I use "fondo" often to talk about the bottom of something (a tube or a barrel) or also to reference the background in a photo, "Alla en el fondo." I suspect that fundillo is derived from fondo etymologically.

I would translate "quedaba" (in this context) as "located."

[KeyWestPirate]

I didn't know that definition of fundillo. I use "fondo" often to talk about the bottom of something (a tube or a barrel) or also to reference the background in a photo, "Alla en el fondo." I suspect that fundillo is derived from fondo etymologically.

I would translate "quedaba" (in this context) as "located."

Fundillo also translates as smelter, which speaks to the richness and nuances of any language,
I can see (and hear) the campo evangelical preachers shouting about spending eternity in the devil's "fundillo".

If you don't repent,, or at least,, buy me a new car.

[RGV AG]

Fundillo also translates as smelter, which speaks to the richness and nuances of any language,
I can see (and hear) the campo evangelical preachers shouting about spending eternity in the devil's "fundillo".

If you don't repent,, or at least,, buy me a new car.

Hahaha, you got me to do some digging on the interwebs. In all my jostled and misspent gallivanting around LatAm I have never heard a smelter called a fundillo. Sure as shit, right as rain, that is what google translates it at in the box though. Fundillo in various cultural lexicons is kinda a bad word, but in others in LatAm not so much. I have heard Colombians use it colloquially and some other South Americans. In Mexican Spanish a smelter is a "Fundidora", and I usually I have heard smelters or furnaces of the like called that by others. Monterrey has a famous park called "Parque Fundidora".


One day, when I am in a writing mood I will have to tell the tale I was told about Nicaraguan refugees in Mexico circa 79' having to have their car horn fixed. Let's just say that in Nicaragua they call the car horn, "El Pito". And let's just say in much of LatAm that is not what car horns are called.

[Daddy-YO]

Pito, pito, colorito


Coming to Nicaragua one saying seemed spot on: Gato viejo, raton tierno. But after more than a decade dancing with el diablo it seems Raton viejo, gato hambrienta may be more appropriate.

Asi es la vida.



“Why not come to Nicaragua and actually BE useless??”
- KeyWestPirate

[Jonh]

Latin for oven is fornax, which at least starts with an f.

[AarontheGreat]

How about: El que se quema con leche, hasta la cuajada sopla....

Once bitten, twice shy....

www.nicatourism.com