A Word To The Wise Is Enough

A buen entendedor, pocas palabras

Babel Fish translation:
Una palabra al sabio es bastante

My husband and I recently went to a local restaurant chain called “El Pollo Loco” to buy dinner. The friendly young lady behind the counter greeted us with “Welcome to El Pollo Loco, may I take your order?”, in a very thick accent. My husband proceeded to recite our order, but since my family is very picky, and our order was quite extensive... well, it soon became apparent that she was having trouble understanding.

So in order to preserve her dignity and the accuracy of our order, my husband turned to me, and gave me that familiar “you take over” look. He doesn’t speak Spanish.

Once I took over and clarified the misunderstanding, her next question to me was “Quiere pollo negro, blanco o mixteado?”

Say what???? Now I’m the one having trouble understanding! As you may already know, I’m well versed in Spanglish, but it took a moment before I realized what she meant.

She was asking if I wanted my chicken order to be dark meat, white meat or mixed, because there is a difference in price for each.

Mixteado??? Nice! Yet another addition to my Spanglish dictionary.

Pollo negro? Yikes! That doesn't sound too good.

This reminds me of a time when I was in line at Subway, and there was this couple waiting in front of me. It seems that the lady became nervous when she realized that all of the “Sandwich Artists” were Hispanic, so she turned to her Hispanic companion, and said to him in a low voice “Why don’t you order for me? I’m afraid they won’t get it right. I want a pastrami sandwich with cheese.”

When the man’s turn came to order he proudly proclaimed: “Quiero un sandwich de pastrami con chís.” Good thing she had him there to say it in Spanish!

Spanglish 101

I think there's enough Spanglish to learn in today's post. No homework for you today!