Goats, Children, Pimps & Ak-47s
Friday, February 15, 2013
Many years ago, perhaps in the late 60s I used to listen to a Mexico City based radio station that broadcast in English. On the hour the station would link with CBS in New York. I loved listening to this station because I grew to love and appreciate such people as Dan Rather, Charles Osgood and a particularly over the top lefty called Nicholas von Hoffman. One broadcast of his remains in my memory in which he said, “If you really want kids, buy a baby goat.”
In Spanish the word goat is much more complex. The most used word is cabra which is the female of the species. But there seems to be no real word for the male of the species as a chivo is the male until he is able to procreate. After? Who Knows? A cabrito is a little kid and in Chile cabros are children, human children in a loosely affectionate moniker. In Mexico those cabros are exquincles (hairless dogs).
A very poor person in Spanish is a cabrito huérfano or a little orphan kid. In Mexico if you want to eat goat you have to ask for cabrito (little goat) but that will not guarantee that you will be served be either a kid or a small old goat.
This brings us back to chivo. A chivito in Uruguay is a very large steak sandwich that includes a fried egg between those slices of bread.
In Latin America a cuerno de chivo, or a goat’s horns is the affectionate name for the Russian assault rifle, the AK-47.
