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Órale, the onda in Caló this week is neta. In modern Spanish it means net, as in bottom line after negatives and positives are counted. In Caló, it stands for “what you really mean.” It’s a relatively new term in Caló. It’s a term you use to cut through rhetoric, jargon or double-speak. It asks for a summary and commitment as to where somebody stands on a given issue. “You say you don’t have a big problem with it, but I want you to tell me a la neta if you like it or not.”

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.

Dr. Rachel Laker, of Hanover College in Indiana, specializes in taphonomy, which explores the processes bones undergo between an animal’s death and fossilization. Big Bend National Park is one site of her research.

Órale, the onda this week in Caló is pichear. It comes from the English word, pitch, and it means to invite someone to a treat or offer to pay the bill for something to the benefit of a guest or date. There’s a similar sounding word we’ve featured in the past, pichonear, but it means to kiss or make out like pigeons– nothing at all to do with pitching.

Órale, the onda this week is pinto. It means somebody who’s just come out of the pinta (prison). It’s not just a lable. It denotes a behavior pattern, a particular attitude and outlook on life. You see, life in the pinta showed the pintos that there are rules in life and consequences for not following them. So when they come out of the pinta, pintos expect them. And they wrestle with them. Some take the course of least resistance, submit and comply. Others very purposefully flout them, as if playing with fire or touching the forbidden. For one thing pintos are not is unconscious rule-followers.

Órale, the onda this week in Caló is friegos. It means abundance, a lot, beacoups, or much. It comes from the term for Death, La Fregada, or the bald one. And it follows the same logic as that with the most magical of all Caló words that can’t be said on public radio. In other words, friegos means a proportion that only La Fregada can produce. “Lot’s more than tons, friegos!”

Órale, the onda this week of Caló is ñango. It means someone who’s clumsy, awkward, maladroit or ham-handed. The word comes from the name of an African tribe who’s people were very tall and, because of that, appeared lanky and unsteady to the Iberians who saw them. One can be ñango physically, socially or tactically. Can’t play sports? Ñango. Can’t dance? Ñango. Can’t work with tools? Ñango.

Órale, the onda this week of Caló is ñañaras. It means a feeling of revulsion, foreboding or goosebumps. It’s a general, not a specific, feeling in reaction to the sight or thought of something or somebody. “I got ñañaras when I was walking out the back and saw the door had been knocked down.”

On April 25th, Alpine’s Front Street Books hosts an event to celebrate the publication of “Wild Women for Good,” from Texas A&M University Press.