by Julie Carter
Cowboy lingo has always been my first language. I never
thought to dissect, define or explain it. It always seemed pretty clear to me.
Recently a few questions from someone who seriously wanted
to be correct in his terminology but claimed only Eastern savvy, sent me on a
quest to learn why I knew what I knew.
Here in the Southwest, just a few cow trails north of
Mexico, we are quite familiar with the mixture of Spanish and English terms. I
had just never seen them all in a list until I purchased Robert Smead’s book called Vocabulario Vaquero, Cowboy Talk.
The book is a dictionary of sorts that shows the absorption
of a large number of ranch-related words from Spanish into English. He contends
it offers striking evidence of that heritage in the history of the American
West and its cowboys.
Many of the essential cowboy items of tack originated in the
Spanish culture. The bozal, usually
written and said as bosal, is the nose band of a headstall or hackamore, which
is from the Spanish term jáquima.
Cowboys still use and still say chaps. That is pronounced as
“shaps” which stems from the original Spanish chaparreras, also pronounced with the “sh.” First guy you hear say
chaps with the ch sound, see if he isn’t from New York City and check the origin of his
salsa while you’re at it.
Corral, lariat, latigo, cinch and ten gallon hat all are
words we throw around that have Spanish roots. Gallon in the hat doesn’t refer
to capacity but to the braided decorations or galones that adorned it. What came first, tank or tanque?
Both hold water.
A Spaniard by the name of Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca (that means
head of a cow -- poor Nuñez!) erroneously gave the Spanish term búfalo to the bison because it looked
like the Indian or African wild ox. Erroneous or not, it stuck.
After the words themselves comes the peculiar direct phrases
used by the cowboy who is almost always free from the constraints of polite
society or convention. These are covered in two other books written by Ramon
Adams called Cowboy Lingo and Western Words.
A cowboy’s slang usually strengthens rather that weakens his
speech. The jargon of this individual among individuals is often picturesque,
humorous and leaves you with no doubt how the man felt about the subject he was
talking about.
He squeezes the juice from language, molds it to suit his
needs and is a genius at making a verb out of anything. The words “cowboy” and
“rodeo” are verbs and “try” is not. “He
paid his fees knowing he better have enough try to cowboy up and rodeo like a
tuff.”
There are phrases that cover situations such as when someone
talks a lot with their hands. “He couldn’t say ‘hell’ with his hands tied.”
When riding a horse with a rough gait that pounds even the best of riders you
will hear, “That buzzard bait would give a woodpecker a headache.”
For a breed of mankind that has a reputation for being “men
of few words,” the cowboy culture has their own entire dictionary of the West.
It is filled with words from several nationalities, many occupations and all
rolled into a “lingo” uniquely their own.
Now I guess I better go catch the old cow hocked,
gotch-eared, ring-tailed cayuse, cinch up my kack and spend a little more
daylight riding for the brand instead of for the grub line.
Julie can be reached
for comment at jcarternm@gmail.com
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