plthijnx and I live in a tough 'hood

[Tonchi]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

OK, what's "Envíos Catrachos."?

The "envíos" part is easy, an envío is something being sent (from enviar= to send), and by extension it also means the cost of the freight. I get to use the word a lot while corresponding with Spanish-speaking buyers through my net store. But there is no meaning I could find for "Catrachos", and in most such cases it turns out to be somebody's name rather than a spoken word with a specific meaning. My guess is this was a pick-up and delivery van belonging to a local Hispanic family business. But I would not discount the possibility that catrachos is barrio slang from a place like El Salvador so the owner named his business that and the word really means something but only to a specific group.

This is why interpreting during a trial can be so dicey. Some ethnic groups use a completely different vocabulary for many common objects and have slang terms which are incomprehensible in neighboring countries. For the O.J. Simpson trial, they had to bring in an interpreter who had been born and raised in the same Central American country as the maid who was going to testify because there was no Court interpreter in Los Angeles who could understand her. The surviving morons who tried to rob and kill the man in the story will EACH be given an interpreter versed in his dialect at the expense of the taxpayers, and the defendants may hold up the trial if they are illegals from some uncommon area and do not feel that they are being provided adequate coverage. They have their civil rights, you see. These interpreters will cost the county many thousands of dollars, all to guarantee a fair trial to people who were caught in the act and are already known to be guilty. Oh well, it keeps some of us employed