Search results for

Órale, this of Caló episode features another iconic word, cholo. It comes from the Nahuatl, or Aztec, word for dog. It entered the Mexican lexicon during the Spanish colonial period as a pejorative for Natives.

Our region's vistas are iconic, but its desert scent — especially after a rain — is just as distinctive. Renowned writer Gary Nabhan will speak on the fragrances of the Chihuahua desert at Marfa's Crowley theater.

As the state parks system marks its centennial, a new book chronicles its history and showcases the visionary Texans who birthed one of the state's most beloved institutions.

In November, Texans will vote on the Centennial Parks Conservation Fund, a billion dollars to buy new state parklands. It would be a victory for a long fight for state-park funding.

Órale, this episode’s about the word placoso(a). It’s a noun that comes from the English and Spanish word, plaque or placa. In Caló today, a placa is commonly understood to be a tattoo. It’s also an adjective—really a pejorative— that generally means gaudy, and it applies as much to someone’s behavior as to an object and tattoo. The image the term placoso evokes is that of somebody with a lot of shiny placas strung—or tattooed— on their neck intended to project importance, success and, perhaps more importantly, high class tastes. The moniker fits influencers who use bling to draw attention to themselves via social media for the purpose of driving their viewers to buy their sponsors’ products. While the products they hawk may be gaudy, that alone doesn’t earn them the label of a placoso(a). Their behavior has to be pretentious and exaggerated, as well as gaudy, to earn that dubious distinction.

Órale, in this episode the featured word is labia. It means gibberish, nonsensical talk. It comes from the latin root word, labium, or lip. In Spanish, the corresponding word is labio. The image it invokes in Caló is that of lips moving with no real or meaningful words coming out.

Big Bend National Park has a singular fossil record, spanning 130 million years. In "Dinosaurs and Other Ancient Animals of Big Bend,” that epic story is told, bringing vanished creatures, and vanished worlds, to life.

The West Texas sky island mountains sustain wondrous biodiversity, but there's one particularly graceful being concealed here: Populus tremuloides, the trembling aspen. New research into West Texas aspens could shed light on their history, and on the continent-wide story of this iconic species.

Órale, the featured of this episode is toríca. It comes from the word, retórica or rhetoric, and means a quick pitch, a fast explanation or argument. It also means a hollow promise, fact, or declaration. It’s something you say to achieve a reprieve or brief agreement, also when you ask someone out on a first date. The better and faster the toríca, the better the chances you get your way.

This episode features one of the most iconic words in Caló, pachuco. Its origin is uncertain, as there are competing versions of its genesis, and it stands on another term of uncertain origin, Chuco, which is the Caló word for El Paso-Juarez, where the culture of Caló has always been very strong. One version of the origin of pachuco is that it’s a contraction for the term para el Chuco or pa’chuco, which means to or for el Chuco, as in she’s moving to or becoming like somebody from El Chuco.