Origin of the Word "Gringo"

there is a long debate over this somewhere in the archives from a few years back

I always thought it came from "Green Go Home!!!"...as in Yankees, go back to your own country...

The other one is mangu...I've heard this one comes from "Man...good!!!" as in a gringo saying "Man...I don't what this is, but it's good!"...

Here is another explaination that was not talked about last time the discussion was held.

The total article can be seen at
http://www.bartleby.com/61/25/G0272500.html

In Latin America the word gringo is an offensive term for a foreigner, particularly an American or English person. But the word existed in Spanish before this particular sense came into being. In fact, gringo may be an alteration of the word griego, the Spanish development of Latin Graecus, ?Greek.? Griego first meant ?Greek, Grecian,? as an adjective and ?Greek, Greek language,? as a noun. The saying ?It's Greek to me? exists in Spanish, as it does in English, and helps us understand why griego came to mean ?unintelligible language? and perhaps, by further extension of this idea, ?stranger, that is, one who speaks a foreign language.? The altered form gringo lost touch with Greek but has the senses ?unintelligible language,? ?foreigner, especially an English person,? and in Latin America, ?North American or Britisher.? Its first recorded English use (1849) is in John Woodhouse Audubon's Western Journal: ?We were hooted and shouted at as we passed through, and called ?Gringoes.??

Jerry

or, more likely, this link, especially the 2nd page.

mob

ps. bonus points if anyone can identify janice before the sex change.

pps. jerry, you're right, that explanation has never been offered here before.

For the longest time I held to the green coats of the American Army against the Mexican Army. Green Go Home. When I was on another site, looking for something else, they proposed an explaination simular to the one I posted above. I tried to find that same site tonight but failed. The thing that I liked about the original site, was they backed it up with a dictionary version that date back before the 1800s, like early 1700 or late 1600s.

It is such a hassle when the hard drive decides to dump and lose your bookmarks. LOL

Jerry

green go

The US army uniform was green and the Mexicans used to say
'green go (green goes). therefore, green goes became 'gringo'.


Jrod (primus inter pares)

Re: green go

JROD said:

The US army uniform was green and the Mexicans used to say
'green go (green goes). therefore, green goes became 'gringo'.


Jrod (primus inter pares)

Click to expand...

Sorry but during the Mexican-American War the U.S. Army's uniform was Blue!!!!

Tony C.

I don't think the uniform explanation is correct. American soldiers only started wearing olive drab uniforms after WWII.