| Marcelo E. Magallon 2004-09-07, 8:48 pm |
| On Tue, Sep 07, 2004 at 01:10:43PM -0700, William Lee Irwin III wrote:
> I feel better now as the folk etymology I heard is listed there.
You mean this the followin quote?
The true origin of gringo is most likely that it came from
griego, the Spanish word for "Greek." In Spanish, as in English,
something difficult or impossible to understand is referred to
as being Greek: We say "It's Greek to me," just as in Spanish an
incomprehensible person is said to hablar en griego (i.e.,
"speak in Greek").
In Spanish we say that people speak "Chinese" or "Russian" when we
don't understand a word of what they are saying, but not "Greek".
I always found amusing that equivalent in German is "he speaks
Spanish".
Marcelo
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