Turbo-Cojones

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On 3/18/06, Dennis R. Preston <preston at msu.edu> wrote:
>
> I'm taking bets it was the journalist and not Ana Roca who said "the
> real connotation." The line between deno and conno may not always be
> clear, but it seems pretty straightforward here:
>
> deno = testicles
> conno = courage, chutzpah, etc...

There's a longer article about this in the print edition of today's
Wall St. Journal (I don't see it in the online edition). Two other
Spanish speakers are quoted saying about the same thing:

----
"In English, Turbo-Balls might not sound so offensive," says Luis
Perez Tolon, an instructor at Miami-Dade College who supervises a
writing program for Spanish-language network, Telemundo. "But in the
Spanish-speaking community, it will always have a vulgar connotation."
...
"For us Latinos, it's a bad word. It's offensive," said Hector
Calderon, maintenance supervisor of a fitness center in Los Angeles.
But he conceds, "a billboard like that sure attracts attention."
----

The article also discusses the brouhaha over Madeleine Albright using
the word "cojones" in 1996 on the floor of the U.N.  (She told Castro,
"This is not cojones, this is cowardice," over the downing of two
flights of exiles.)


--Ben Zimmer

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