Talk:List of Puerto Rican slang words and phrases/Archive 1

Delete proposal
VfD discussion, June 4, 2004. No consensus to delete. No consensus to move to Wiktionary. Various suggestions for improvement might be followed up on. Dpbsmith 01:32, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * I am Puerto Rican born and raised, lived there 17 years and Cherry wasn't on the list I have added it twice and someone keeps deleting it. Is there a way to reach them or mark it for debate so I may prove it and stop being deleted constantly?
 * What is this doing in an encyclopedia? I think this should be moved to Wiktionary. And while we are at it, also move Chocha. Lev 19:17, 28 May 2004 (UTC)
 * This belongs in an article on Spanish dialectology in the Spanish wikipedia, definitely not here. &mdash;Chameleon 19:19, 28 May 2004 (UTC)
 * I don't see any reason an article on Spanish dialectology is any more or less appropriate in the English-language Wikipedia than the Spanish-language Wikipedia. I wouldn't necessarily object to moving it to Wiktionary, but (assuming it's reasonably accurate -- I haven't looked at it all that closely) it should certainly be preserved. Does anyone know just what articles we do have on the regional variations of Spanish? It's a pretty diverse language, and the different national and regional variants probably do deserve coverage of some sort in an encyclopedia. (Since this question is a bit off topic, feel free to reply on my talk page.)
 * Keep. It's interesting, it's written in English, and, because Puerto Rico is an, um, place with very close connections to the United States, it has a higher interest to English-speaking residents of the United States than other Spanish-language-related articles might have. I speak almost no Spanish; I once spent a week in Venezuela with a companion who had grown up in Puerto Rico and knew "Spanish." I was amazed to find that it was not that easy for him to communicate; that he was being thrown by differences in vocabulary, colloquialisms, etc. I had the impression that differences in Puerto Rican and Venezuela Spanish were significantly greater than the differences between U.S. and British English. Dpbsmith 21:11, 28 May 2004 (UTC)
 * OK, OK. If you really feel this sort of thing is important, I'll include the content when I rewrite certain articles on Spanish.  I'll get this article deleted after that. &mdash; Chameleon 21:34, 28 May 2004 (UTC)
 * While the concept and implications of the dialect differences are encyclopedic, the list of phrases belong in Wiktionary. A few examples may be appropriate to illustrate the article, but this article has more than just a few. Move content to the appropriate article(s) then redirect. Rossami 22:00, 28 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. Antonio Ballistic Martin
 * You would say that &mdash; you wrote it. &mdash;  Chameleon 00:42, 29 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Let's redirect and try and turn it into a useful entry on Puerto Rican Spanish. (One question suggests itself: are accents considered optional in PR Spanish? There's not a single one in the article as it stands!) The list format is the wrong way to go for a dialectology article: too unstructured, too anecdotical. –Hajor 00:17, 29 May 2004 (UTC)
 * No, there is no difference in accent use according to countries. Lack of accents is instead a feature of uneducated Spanish everywhere, in particular on the internet.  Just as English speakers rite like dis & think their real kewl lol, Spanish speakers write like in this article.
 * An informal list like this is really not encyclopaedic and should be deleted, perhaps with its content dumped onto the talk page of Spanish language so that I and the others there can work some of it into existing articles. &mdash; Chameleon 00:37, 29 May 2004 (UTC)


 * Keep: informative. Needs work, but hey, so do lots of articles. Wile E. Heresiarch 06:55, 31 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Rhymeless 04:59, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)
 * I'm Spanish. 9 out of the 32 phrases are very common in Castilian Spanish. I presume quite a lot of the rest are either too local or private jokes. Definitely this list does not show the diversity of Puerto Rican Spanish. Delete it. --alfanje 01:44, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. Being Puerto Rican I find the list worthy of keeping, many of these sayings either I hear all the time, I've heard and have not heard in a long time or have never heard at all (ej. Se lucio el chayote!). With the overwhelming Americanization of the current Puerto Rican youth many of the expressions of my grandfathers will be lost, keeping a record in a public encyclopedia allows for cultural anthropological study that otherwise would be lost. The article does need a lot of work, and if some of the sayings are found to be in Castilian Spanish (or Venezuelan, Mexican, Chilean...) then it ought to be pointed out for a more precise study of the Puerto Rican particularities as well as a future broader spanish slang list.
 * We should either delete or explain the origin and importance in Puerto Rican slang of all the words that are common in other Spanish speaking countries. The article requires to be cleaned up but by no means to be deleted entirely. We probably have to reach a decision as to whether it should stay as a Wikipedia article or be moved to Wiktionary or some other place. This is a very useful and informative list. Working the words and phrases into existing articles would dilute the list so much it will give the false impression of the impact of Puerto Rican slang and how it actually affects Spanish speaking in Puerto Rico.  I suggest we keep the list together, clean it up as to make it as informative as possible, and decide whether it should be relocated. The actual Internet slang list is found in Wiktionary and is not part of the Internet slang article. If you can find other articles that are lists of slangs from other countries, you might have a point to leave it as an article. If not, reconsider. I will try to correct all the accents I can since these are spoken slang words and phrases and the correct gramatical form must be mantained for correct pronunciation, unless the idea of the slang is the incorrect pronunciation of a word (like "mojao" instead of mojado). In those cases I will leave it untouched. RayLast (talk) 19:18, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Merge proposal
Even though this article contains phrases in addition to single words, there is a clear redundancy with the article Examples of typical Puerto Rican vocabulary, as they deal basically with the same subject. Is is therefore worthy merging the two. --AVM (talk) 13:15, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree. ~ RayLast  « Talk! » 13:34, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Half of this list is not Puerto Rican exclusive - like "se fue.... como el diablo" that's said everywhere, its not exclusive at all. Tydestra (talk) 00:20, 23 July 2008 (UTC) Ty

Phrases and Slangs in Puerto Rico
I don't see the issue of publishing this in the dictionary or the encyclopedia. After all we are a nation in the caribbean, actually we are one of the few commonwealth's of the United States left in the world. Spanish has not multiple but millions of different ways of dialect's if you want to call them that. If you go to Central America, South America, and Spain you will not only find that there are millions of words that even thought are written the same way, mean a completely different thing in other places. I will add some phrases known as "refranes" of Puerto Rico later on. But is a shame that even in this site they would relegate us to a second or third place. We are a country like it or not.Anabelen45 (talk) 00:56, 21 April 2010 (UTC).

abochornarse
''Abochornarse - to blush. Comes from Bochorno, the Spanish Muslim woman's veil.'' Is there a source for the veil thing? All I could find in relation to bochorno (blush, embarrassment, sweltering weather, heat wave) is that it originates from Latin Vulturnus for a hot southeastern wind and name of a god.--88.73.3.243 (talk) 12:12, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Format
I have tried to standardized the format of the entries so the artcile looks more like one single coherent unit.

The format I think works best is probably one in the following order and with the following characteristics:
 * 1) Slang word or phrase - in bold and (obviously) on a new line (when both male and female versions of the term exist, use only the male version, as the female version can generally be deduced from Spanish language grammatical rules. If the female term must be used, identify both terms by a "m." and a "f.", respectively)
 * 2) A dash ("-") to separate the term from the description of the term.
 * 3) Literal meaning, if any, in this format (without the curly brackets): {Literally, }.
 * 4) English meaning/definition.
 * 5) Examples in quotes and italics, followed by the English equivalent inside parenthesis.
 * 6) Origin of the term, if known.

This is just my opinion; I am sure there will be some necessary exceptions, but at least with this way we can have some guideline.

My name is Mercy11 (talk) 20:02, 14 June 2012 (UTC), and I approve this message.

List of Puerto Rican phrases, words and slangs
"Abochornarse" the word does not come, as stated in your page, from "bochorno" making reference to the muslim woman's veil, but the word literally means, in Spanish, to blush. bochorno also means a very hot temperature during the day, thus making anyone's face red from the heat.--Aliceanam (talk) 17:12, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

"¡A las millas de chaflán!" -this is a mistake. the correct way is: A las millas hechas flan. a literal meaning would be "at the miles made custard pudding" and the real meaning refers to going so fast that it's like miles are simply devoured just like you'd gobble up a spoonful of delicious custard. the mistake probably comes from the way we articulate, which makes it sound like this: "a laj millaj hechaj flán" or "a laj millaj echaflán". the confusion, thus, comes from the last two words that could be interpreted both as "de chaflán" or "hechas flan". obviously, "de chaflán" doesn't mean anything in Spanish, while "hechas flan" makes all the sense in the world. Aliceanam (talk) 17:05, 2 March 2013 (UTC)


 * On "Abochornarse" - removed note to Muslim women's veil for lack of a citation. On ¡A las millas de chaflán! - please provide a citation for the change, as there is already an existing citation for the current text. My name is Mercy11 (talk) 20:28, 4 March 2013 (UTC), and I approve this message.

I came here to find positive, and friendly phrases of the Puerto Rican culture. Instead I find nasty, violent, and rude phrases. I was expecting better from Wikipedia. Shame on you.72.50.81.150 (talk) 14:05, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Original Research at the leading
The information in the leading section of this article should backed up by references. I'm pretty sure there are academic work covering the subject. We should look for it.

As the article stands now, it seems the leading was written solely based on the everyday experience of wikipedians acquainted with the subject. For instance, sating that Puerto Rican Spanish uses anglicisms from often (than other Spanish variations), while utterly believable, it still needs a reliable reference. That the Puerto Ricans "leave "d" sounds out of words" is also something that must be unquestionable to anyone that have been lived in the country, but not for someone from abroad interested on the subject.

I'll be doing some research on the subject. --damiens.rf 17:16, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Original Research throughout the article
Every single slang word or phrase listed in this article must be backed up by a reference. This is not negotiable.

A reference, in this case, is not source using the slang word or phrase. It must be a (reliable) source discussing or attesting the existence of that slang word or phrase, like a book about Spanish slang or even a dictionary.

There's a lot of unreferenced slang words and phrases in the list. I'll clean the list up someday. --damiens.rf 17:22, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Clean up
Clean up just started. I removed all unreferenced material. Next steps are: --damiens.rf 17:03, 20 May 2014 (UTC)
 * 1) Check for the validity of the references currently used.
 * 2) Find references for previously unreferenced itens and readd them to the article.

I'm checking for the references right now, and a lot of them are really bad. They are mostly links to webpages (sometimes even self-published blogs) just using the slang word or phrase. References must be reliables source discussing or attesting the existence of that slang word or phrase as a puerto rican term. --damiens.rf 17:20, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Now I removed all failed references. That is, the ones that are just texts using the slang/phrase in question, instead of supporting/discussing the fact that they are common slang words or phrases used in Puerto Rico.

Although, some of the remaining terms are sourced by a link to urbandictionary.com. Is it a reliable source? --damiens.rf 18:03, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Well... per this discussion, no, it's not. --damiens.rf 18:08, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Salapastroso
I am trying to add this word but I have no idea how to go about it maybe one of the editors? Word is "salapastroso" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.159.243.176 (talk) 22:04, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
 * What does it mean, and do you have a citation to support its meaning? Also be sure it is indeed Puerto Rican slang and not simply standard Spanish. Mercy11 (talk) 05:00, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
 * It is a PR slang for zarrapastroso 108.49.26.41 (talk) 20:48, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Worst clean-up ever
Sorry, but that was the worst "clean-up" ever. You took a perfectly usable list of hundreds of slang words and shortened it to 3(!) words just because there were not enough references. You announced to look up the references. Feel free to do it, but in the meantime let others use the list please (yes, people were actually working with it and the list was useful as it was). Mnbvcxyz (talk) 15:21, 16 June 2014 (UTC)


 * This is not how we work here at Wikipedia. For anyone looking for an unreliable list of problably puerto rican slangs, the Internets is out there. We plan to make a reliable, referenced collection of information.
 * Do no readd unreferenced information. --damiens.rf 15:09, 8 July 2014 (UTC)


 * So why don't you delete this list:
 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_British_words_not_widely_used_in_the_United_States
 * or this one:
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_slogans
 * They are also more than 90% without references.
 * Mnbvcxyz (talk) 21:38, 10 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Because WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS --damiens.rf 11:57, 12 July 2014 (UTC)