The word ‘cholo’ (or ‘chola’) is used here in the Andes, both as a pejorative which means half-caste or mixed race, and as an endearment which means ‘dear’ or ‘darling’. So there are songs like ‘Chola Cuencana’, a very well-known traditional song in these parts, but at the same time calling a stranger ‘cholo’ or ‘chola’ might get you in a lot of trouble.
Skip 2 minutes if you don’t like the style, which I don’t.
Thrag
1696
Okay, that got a good honest aloud “What the Fuck” out of me.
I think Patrick Stewart might have Sparky Anderson Syndrome, where you become old at a fairly young age, then age about 1 year per decade from there on out.
5:50 I was in Spain once and I asked for a ‘jugo de naranja’ and the person had no freaking idea what I wanted. I was annoyed and asked for ‘zumo’ instead but dude, some context, it’s almost the same and what do you think I wanted, orange leather? orange jelly? It’s a coffee shop selling drinks. I think the guy was just being a dick.
(The way I learned is that jugo is juice, and zumo is extract, a more concentrated juice.)
That was a daily experience of mine when I lived in Spain - if you didn’t use the exact word or were slightly off in pronunciation, people would have no idea what you were saying despite it being obvious in context (or via mime), nor would they participate in any kind of effort to resolve the impasse by offering suggestions.
It was one of the more infuriating things to living there, and seemed pretty unique to Spain - I never had that problem in Portugal or France for example.
ShivaX
1700
He does have some weird thing that made him lose most of his hair really young.
I vaguely recall some interview/show on cable back in the day where he mentioned it.
Edit: Weird website, but whatever.
Sir Patrick Stewart began balding at the age of 19 and he lost almost all his hair within just one year.
That’s strange, while jugo de naranja would be something somebody from Latin America would say, it’s definitely 100% understandable. Unless the pronunciation was off, I don’t see how that can cause confusion in principle.
But: one thing to be mindful in Spain before the 2000s/2010s (or with older people in general) is that a lot of people have no freaking idea of English and had very, very little contact with foreigners and with foreign languages/sounds (everything most people watch is dubbed). Tie this to the purely phonetic pronunciation and very limited set of sounds (five vowels, no distinction between V and B… etc) , and you get into a situation that strong thick foreign accents (nothing super extreme, I’m talking something like my accent would be in English nowadays, even though I’m 100% fluent and work in English daily) could be very hard to understand and I can see it tripping neuronal short-circuits in some people. I’ve never had this issue, but my parents did, they were just not used to people pronouncing words in a slightly different way. Maybe something like that was going on there.
Of course, a waiter is expected a little effort there, and it’s a little bit mind blowing unless it was an older person in a smallish place.
I speak perfectly fine. I normally speak in a neutral accent. I guess the guy was a dick. It was in some bright city type place, maybe Madrid. It was not one of those small town places.
Then he just was being a dick, surely. I can’t think of any reason why you wouldn’t understand what jugo de naranja is.
Dude was just trying to bring a little Paris to his city!
Matt_W
1705
Lol. :)
FWIW I love Paris. It might be my favorite city in the world (Boston is up there too.) I’ve visited several times, speak very little French, but have either only experienced unfailing politeness or been totally oblivious to the rudeness, which is the same thing as far as I’m concerned. I also don’t usually try to speak English there at all, but you don’t really have to. You can get quite far with “bonjour”, “bonne soiree”. “s’il vous plait”, “merci”, “je voudrais…”, “l’addition”, “pardon”, and “desole”. And French is, among Romance languages, the easiest language to read for English speakers, so signs and warnings you can usually figure out.
KevinC
1706
That sounds nice. Did they export all their assholes to Quebec or something? ;)
OK, this should be jail for whoever “made this mistake”.
This is my experience as well. I’m quite sure that rude Parisian waiters exist — else we would not hear so much about them — but I’ve never encountered them, and I spent the better part of a couple of years in and out of Paris when I was working. Like you, I always try to engage everyone in French, at least with respect to polite greetings, requests for things, and so on; though my French isn’t much better than rudimentary.
There was one waiter who patiently explained to me why I did not want that particular bottle of wine, but he was not rude about it, and he was right. More of a public service than snootiness.
I knew someone in college who got a big settlement because they were a gymnast, got injured, and somehow the doctors operated on the wrong knee.
This is why right before the operation they write on the body, in GIANT BLACK MARKER, things like “THIS LEG” AND “NOT THIS LEG” and yet this shit can still happen.
Today is a banner day for stupid.
RichVR
1711
Couldn’t watch the whole thing. What a steaming pile of shit.
