Search results for

Right now, spring is announcing itself across West Texas in diverse ways.

Órale, this episode’s feature is about a very notorious word in Caló, pinche. It’s very misused, to the point that many people think it’s a curse word, as it’s often used in concert with curse words. Pinche itself isn’t a curse word, however. In both Iberian Romani and Rio Grande Caló, it merely means notorious, well-known, undeniable. When it’s used in conjunction with a curse word, the purpose of pinche is to aggrandize the curse, as in that pinche one-eyed truck wouldn’t start or el pinche show-off is at it again.

Órale, this is the last episode of the series focused on the Iberian Romaní Caló words that also circulate in Rio Grande Caló. And today we've got a surprise: lollipop. Candy on a stick. Everybody who knows Caló knows that’s what it means. But it originally comes from the Romaní specialty of candied apples, ayí poba. Of course, it’s a powerful image that allows for a wide spectrum of metaphors. In Rio Grande Caló it's used to reference everything from a hot love to a false promise—but not likely a candied or sugared apple on a stick.

Wildfires burn landscapes, but they also sear themselves into memory, and many Big Bend National Park enthusiasts remember the South Rim 4 Fire of April 2021. It began near a backcountry campsite, suggesting a possible human cause, and burned across 1,300 acres of the Chisos Mountains. It was the most intense blaze in the storied range in decades.

Broken pieces of prehistoric pottery – known to archeologists as “potsherds” – are striking artifacts. As fragments of painted vessels, they vividly evoke Native American life, in both its aesthetic and practical dimensions.

Órale, the onda in Caló this week is tramados. It means pants. The same word in modern Spanish means a weaving, primarily as in a narrative, story line or drama. Very much in the argot fashion, where communication is hidden through different meanings of an otherwise well-known word, Caló uses the word for weaving for something entirely different, trousers. Plausibly, trousers came out as tramados for Caló-speakers.

The Devils River is frequently described as the most pristine river in Texas. Flowing where the Chihuahuan Desert blends into the Hill Country and the South Texas shrublands, it’s a luminous ribbon of water in an arid land. It’s also a hunter’s paradise, with a rich ranching heritage, and home to globally significant cave paintings. And it’s an ecological wonder, a last stronghold for aquatic creatures that have vanished elsewhere.

On Caló this week, the word writer Oscar Rodriguez explores: "Apéate" — get down, get off, get on your feet.You can hear Caló every Tuesday on Marfa…

Órale, the word ‘cóncono’ is the word we're exploring this episode. Cócono means turkey. It’s an onomatopoeia, a word that sounds like the object being…

The Caló expression 'le canta' is this episode’s feature. It comes from the Spanish verb cantar, to sing. In Caló it means to speak strongly or with great intention about something. When somebody la canta to somebody else, it’s usually to mark a boundary or give a warning, as in to say, “pay attention to what I’m saying because what comes next is action.”