06.13.09
A Lousy Conversation
One of the things I really enjoy about visiting other countries is learning their language. This is not an academic exercise filled with parts of speech and verb conjugations, but learning the colloquial language: idioms, slang and the like. I enjoy trying to understand these nuances and come up with a dynamic equivalence translation to my native tongue.
I made a fascinating discovery in a conversation with one of my colleagues here in Buenos Aires. He came to a point where he was having difficulty translating a word because he was confident the literal translation of the Spanish word “piojoso” would be meaningless to me. So he started explaining that the root word, “piojo”, is the bug that gets in your hair. “Oh, you mean lice?” Someone else confirmed that, yes, lice was indeed the bug. He continued explaining that, when something was old, run-down, dirty, unpopular, etc. they would say it is “piojoso”: lousy.
We probably don’t think about it much anymore, but lousy literally means “filled with lice”, which is exactly the same literal meaning of piojoso. And, just like us, Argentinians no longer associate piojoso with lice. It has taken on its own meaning in both languages, and that meaning is identical in both languages.
How did that happen? Is it just coincidence? If not, who came up with it first and how did the languages get cross-pollinated? They are both romantic-languages and, therefore, share a common heritage. According to Words, lousy in Latin is pediculosus, pediculosa or pediculosum, but does it have the same connotation? I have no idea, but I find it to be a fascinating mystery!
Hmmm… maybe I should become a linguist when I grow up! 
