LL-L "Songs" 2003.03.09 (03) [E]

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From: Ed Alexander <edsells at cogeco.ca>
Subject: LL-L "Songs" 2003.03.08 (02) [E]

At 03:07 PM 03/08/03 -0800, Allison wrote:
>Perhaps you all know this, but the term "gringos" used by Mexicans
>to refer to northwestern Europeans arose from the song "Green Grow the
>Rashes O".  The cowboys were always singing this song.

Nope.  This was discussed several years ago, and I, too, needed to be
disabused of this notion.  The general consensus was that it was a
derivative of the Spanish word for "Greek" <griego>, as in, "it's all Greek
to me".  Here's one of the many transmissions from 1998, where this was
discussed:

L O W L A N D S - L * 09.OCT.1998 (01) * ISSN 1089-5582 * LCSN 96-4226

From: Margaret Tarbet <tarbet at swaa.com>
Subject: "Language contacts" [E]

 >From: Edwin Michael Alexander <edsells at wwwebcity.com>
 >My 1914 Funk & Wagnalls Dictionary says that it comes from a Spanish word
 >meaning "gibberish".  Unfortunately, I do not have a Spanish dictionary to
 >check this.  But there really is a song called Green Grow the Rushes Grow.

My Cassels gives "galimati'as" and "jerigonza" for the noun, and "farullar"
for the verb "gibber".  Which
suggests that there may be some confusion there, at least so far as the
word in isolation is concerned.

One theory i've seen given by several sources is that it's a corruption of
"griego"  (greek).   This may be
the actual source of Ed's dictionary's "gibberish" translation, since
Cassels gives "hablar en gringo" as
"to speak gibberish /or/ double-dutch".   It's not an exceptionally large
jump to imagine corruption from
"griego", given that "hablar en griego" is given as another way to say the
same thing  :-)  =20

=3Dmargaret

Ed Alexander, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

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