Masamon Keelel

jabejuventus · May 2, 2014

So I'm in la ferreteria (hardware store) the other day inquiring about getting rid of fungus on concrete cement walls. The counter guy explains and then begins to rave about a product called Masamon Keelel. I'm curious to the point where I ask him to show me the product. When he shows me I exclaim, "oh, Moss and Mold Killer." When he heard the English pronunciation we both had a laugh.

A current thread got me to thinking about the many variations in language. E.g., in NYC Hispanics refer to the Lower East Side as Loisaida. What 'Dominicanization' of English expression have you come across?

dv8 · May 2, 2014

peKsi and piKca.

Xavier_Onassis · May 2, 2014

m?qintep. MA keen tayp (masking tape)

I called it "cinta de mascar" which is the name printed on the label of such tape in Mexico. No one understood me, so I asked to see the types of tape (cinta) they had.

A serging machine is called a mero, because one manufacturer was named Merrow.

In Mexico the hot water heater is called "el boyla".

Heard on the border in a muffler shop: "a esta pipa le hace falta hueldiar"

A muffler is a "silenciador", while a mofle is the tailpipe, by the way.

Mauricio · May 2, 2014

Well, a fellow poster does it the other way around. I couldn't help laughing when skynet directed me this morning to a company that repairs stoves on Carmen Mendoza, near Therman Lewis.

That street is called Luis F. Thomen......

(sorry Anthony.......)

bronzeallspice · May 2, 2014

LOL! It's the way they pronounce it or how it sounds to them. I've heard of many that had me rolling with laughter.:classic: It's quite funny.

Like the famous vivaporu: vicks vapor rub.

jabejuventus · May 2, 2014

Mauricio said:
Well, a fellow poster does it the other way around. I couldn't help laughing when skynet directed me this morning to a company that repairs stoves on Carmen Mendoza, near Therman Lewis.

That street is called Luis F. Thomen......

(sorry Anthony.......)

Ahhhh yes. Who doesn't know La Avenida Chuchi, or just La Chuchi (Churchill Ave.)?

bronzeallspice · May 2, 2014

Or polo che(polo shirt)

CarpeDReam · May 2, 2014

Till I was maybe a teenager I really thought Sheetrock was called chirra until someone at the Home Depot corrected me. I was raised in NY but that's always how my dad and his friends called it!

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jabejuventus · May 2, 2014

CarpeDReam said:
Till I was maybe a teenager I really thought Sheetrock was called chirra until someone at the Home Depot corrected me. I was raised in NY but that's always how my dad and his friends called it!

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

How about pliyu (plywood)?

dv8 · May 2, 2014

Derfish said:
He replied "me estan fokieando."

work f**k has wormed its way into polish as well. we would say fakaj się (f**k yourself) using polish grammar construction

i think that english has influenced dominican spanish a great deal. from all that common bye bye that almost replaced adios to technical terms just dominicanized with spanish suffix.

Mauricio · May 2, 2014

Never eaten a hamburger at 'Madonna'?

CarpeDReam · May 2, 2014

Old ones:

Apambichao= this is the way a merengue is danced typically. Before merengue, there was merengue tipico (or perico ripiao). It is much faster. During the first US invasion in 1916, the US soldiers found it too fast to dance too so the dominicans slowed it down and called that type of dance Apambichao --> palm beach [style]. Palm Beach at the time was a famous US clothing brand.

Fuyin: dominicans now consider this the anus but it came from that same time (the invasion): the soldiers used to call the big butt women in the DR: full jean. Eventually dominicans considered that the butt hole.

a la 'brigandina'= when someone says you did something 'a la brigandina' it means you did it haphazardly...a crappy job. This is because a (british I believe) company called Bridge & Dean built a bridge that fell apart many decades ago...needless to say...

They also often use the names of the most common brands of products (or the ones who introduced them). I.e. gilette=razor, pamper= diaper, can't think of others but there are.

more recent ones:

'a lo foque'...this is when someone does something without giving a crap anymore (come to think about it, can be used often interchangeably with brigandina)

jolopear = to hold someone up (get mugged)--i think this is more of a puerto rican one.

Mauricio · May 2, 2014

Cebeno for 7up or sprite.

Xavier_Onassis · May 2, 2014

A tank top is called, for some strange reason, a "franela"

Franela is flannel. I have yet to see a flannel franela.

If you have a stain on your clothes, you are wearing "ropa curtida" (cured clothes) Curtido is what you call something cured, like cured pork. You should never go out in ropa curtida.

Bronxboy · May 2, 2014

jabejuventus said:
E.g., in NYC Hispanics refer to the Lower East Side as Loisaida.

Loisaida - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Xavier_Onassis · May 2, 2014

Here in Miami we have los Sauheseros, people who live in the SW part of Miami-Dade county.

La Profe_1 · May 2, 2014

CarpeDReam said:
They also often use the names of the most common brands of products (or the ones who introduced them). I.e. gilette=razor, pamper= diaper, can't think of others but there are.

Took me forever to figure out what my new cleaning lady wanted when she kept asking for "Ace." Evidently, that is the favorite brand of powdered detergent for cleaning bathrooms!

dulce · May 2, 2014

In real estate adds I have often seen walking closet for walk in closet.

Xavier_Onassis · May 2, 2014

Hace is a popular laundry and cleaning soap. It is the usual generic name for powdered soap.

windeguy · May 2, 2014

Mauricio said:
Never eaten a hamburger at 'Madonna'?

I can't find the Youtube video about that topic. Hilarious.

I was building a 9 meter octagonal open air building and was look for roofing material. Many of the places in Cabarete have this corrugated material that looked like some type of thin cement. I asked what it was and they called it

A-Bay-To.

Well nobody was selling any A-Bay-To.... Wonder why? It is ASBESTOS and is still on many buildings in town. I ended up using 'Zin(c) Plastico" which is the same size as the corrugated metal used here so it is easy for people here to use it, but is plastic and lasts much longer.

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