Here's the story of one of those moments where one of your childhood linguistic fallacies comes full circle.
Roberto and I used to sing a song in Spanish that I had once heard on Sesame Street. I didn't speak any Spanish back then, and thus couldn't understand any of the words, so I just assumed they meant in English what they sounded like phonetically.
"Las choppas neck-as Ay, Ay."
"Ay! Ay!"
"Las choppas neck-as ay, ay."
"Ay! Ay!"
Rob and I would go around all day singing this crazy song about people getting decapitated. And we loved it.
So fifteen years later I'm here going to grad school and we begin to translate this thing about the civil unrest in the state of Chiapas, Mexico. Well, it just so happens that a person from Chiapas is called a "chiapaneco," usually pronounced "choppa-neck-o." Well, it didn't take me more than a couple of days to realize that the whole time we had been unwittedly singing this old Mexican folk tune about hot chicks from Chiapas.
Las Chiapanecas, ay, ay.
Good heavens. None of those chicks are hot.
Roberto and I used to sing a song in Spanish that I had once heard on Sesame Street. I didn't speak any Spanish back then, and thus couldn't understand any of the words, so I just assumed they meant in English what they sounded like phonetically.
"Las choppas neck-as Ay, Ay."
"Ay! Ay!"
"Las choppas neck-as ay, ay."
"Ay! Ay!"
Rob and I would go around all day singing this crazy song about people getting decapitated. And we loved it.
So fifteen years later I'm here going to grad school and we begin to translate this thing about the civil unrest in the state of Chiapas, Mexico. Well, it just so happens that a person from Chiapas is called a "chiapaneco," usually pronounced "choppa-neck-o." Well, it didn't take me more than a couple of days to realize that the whole time we had been unwittedly singing this old Mexican folk tune about hot chicks from Chiapas.
Las Chiapanecas, ay, ay.
Good heavens. None of those chicks are hot.
posted by napalmbrain at
4:11 PM
2 Comments:
I don't know what you're talking about - the one in the middle is hot. I'd totally do 'er.
The same thing happened to me when I was in Mlle Hamstead's French 3 class at East. I had learned the delightful song, "Alouette" from Katherine Warner's mom in 2nd grade, and had sang it for years and years not knowing what any of it meant. I pulled it out of a dusty mental file in 9th grade, and decided to figure out what it meant. "Oh Lark, pretty little Lark, I'm going to pluck your head, nose, eyes, neck, wings, back, legs, tail". It came as quite a shock, but I got over it and I'm think Ryan Parker and I ended up singing it together on the Pioneer Trek while we were stuck plucking the turkeys.
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