REA Accepts New Term: United State-ism

During the 20 years that I have chaired the Gazapera [El Espectador’s linguistic blog], I have had to reverse my position on some concepts for which I had fought tooth and nail.

I will give one example (for lack of space) that illustrates my defeats: the verb, “implement” [implementar]. Among these struggles have been English words that enter into the daily speech of Latinos living in the U.S. and then, through family, friends and themselves, flood into Latin American speech. Some of these words have homonyms in Spanish. It is normal in our language that some words have different meanings depending on the country and even the region. Many debates will take place during which the logic will not quite fit, because, as always, there will be inconsistencies. I have already detected them in the sources consulted for this note. They accepted parada as parade [desfile] (a word that has been in the dictionary for centuries), but attacked the use of carpeta for carpet [alfombra], although both use similar morphological processes (further explanation omitted here for lack of space).

The Real Academia accepted the term United State-ism [estadounidismo] as “a word or usage common to Spanish spoken in the United States of America.” With that they opened the door for many other terms. I invite my colleagues and those who follow us to stop throwing up our hands in horror and accept the usual rule: what is valid for one, is valid for others.

United State-isms are not the same as atrocious translations like “I’ll call you backward” [“Te llamo para atrás”] for “I’ll call you back,” instead of “I’ll return your call” [“Te devuelvo la llamada”]. I have always maintained that the accepted expressions “bajar de internet” and “subir a internet” are atrocious translations of the terms “download” and “upload,” which in English are not necessarily linked to a change in level but rather to the concepts of “outside” and “inside.” This leads to an overestimation of the virtual Internet universe with respect to our material universe. Although the determination will not be well received by many, obedience calls.