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Órale, the onda this week is chafa. It means something cheaply made, defective, or a low-quality person or gesture. A bad haircut is chafa. A repair job that doesn’t last long is chafa. A slow thank you is chafa. A love interest that only thinks of the physical is chafa.

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.

It features prominently in the earliest European account of the American Southwest, and it’s a fascinating chapter in Texas history. And yet, much about La Junta – the Native American society that flourished at the confluence of the Rio Grande and Rio Conchos, at present-day Presidio-Ojinaga – remains mysterious. Archeologists haven’t given it the same attention as other farming and village societies.

Órale, the onda in Caló this week is qüajedas, alternatively spelled and pronounced quahidas for primarily English-speakers. It comes from the Texas dialect of English. It came into that tongue as a borrowed word from the Comanche (Numunu), for whom it served as the name for the band of their tribe that lived in what’s today eastern New Mexico and the Texas Panhandle; namely, the Quahadas. Because this band was the last of the Numunu to live autonomously, the Europeans, including the Spanish, Scots, Anglos and Saxons, warred with them the longest—well into the 1800s. Out of this experience, came the expression “put the quahedas” to something or someone, which came to replace locally the expression for stopping something, or “putting the kibosh” to something or someone. Quahedas is in the Caló lexicon in Texas, but it also appears elsewhere along the Rio Grande, including Mexico, as cuajar, which also means to freeze in Spanish and has the same meaning and sounds the same when quajedas is turned into a verb, cuajar.

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.”

Órale, today’s episode is about the word, chisgado, an adjective that describes a bad state of mind or, better yet, being out of one’s proper mind. It…

Today's word of the day is Apañar. It comes from the old Castilian, meaning to cover or hold in your hand. It was brought to the borderlands by Spanish…

Today’s word is vato. This ubiquitous and metaphysical Caló word comes from the Spanish word chivato, billy goat. The premier definition of vato, even…