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Órale, today the focus is going to be on the word ‘gacho.’ It means undesireable, mean, bad. It’s rooted in the French word for left-handed, ‘gauche,’ which back in time represented the wrong way. That meaning evoled in Caló to the point the term is now very value laden, as in, “Que gacho George. He wouldn’t co-sign my car loan. Now I have to buy something gacho.”

Órale, the Caló word for this episode is ‘morra.’ It means girlfriend. It implies mutual attraction, but it’s gender specific. The masculine counterpart,…

The Caló word for this episode is ‘rola,’ which means song. It comes from the juke box brand that launched in the 1930s, Rock-Ola. Each song in the Rock-Ola came to be known as a rola, over time so too did the songs that played on the radio or were accessible from vinyl albums, compact discs, and electronic playlists.

This episode is about the word, onda. In modern Spanish it means wavelength or radio signal. In Caló it refers to the state of one’s mind or that of the…

Today’s feature is about ‘el’ and ‘ese.’ Since they come from Spanish, there are feminine versions of these articles ‘la’ and ‘esa.’ Like many languages,…

Today’s Caló word is lisa. It means a crisply ironed shirt. It comes from the Spanish word for shirt, camisa. While it’s a contraction of that term, it’s…

This episode is about the word ‘trola.’ It means matchstick, wooden out of a box or cardboard from a book of matches. Trola is rooted solely in Caló.…

Órale, the feature today is the term ‘moyote.’ It’s the Nahuatl or Aztec word for mosquito. While you’ll hear it used outside the Rio Grande region in…

Órale, the featured word today is ‘aguila.’ It’s the Spanish word for eagle. In Caló it’s used to mean alertness or beware. Somebody who’s watching out…

Órale, the Caló word of the day is ‘echarse.’ It’s the Spanish verb for toss, put, lay on, or oust. In Caló, echarse means to slump, give up, or got to…