ALL the words!

Once upon a time (summer 2013) in a land far, far away (Santa Cruz, Bolivia) I commented to a friend (A) that I was thinking of signing up for an advanced Spanish class to smooth out my remaining grammatical errors. A said "Why? You know plenty of words." to which I indignantly responded, "I want to know ALL the words!"

As a good little language learner I keep a continuous list of new vocabulary. Since I just finished a notebook, I thought I would share some with you.

From the time I was reading the Safety and Security Manual:
pernocte - overnight
hostigamiento - harrassment
abolladuras - dents
fechorias - misdeeds
semovientes - livestock
escombros - debris
abrumadora - overwhelming
saque partido - take advantage

From the passion fruit report:
hito - milestone
deschupona - suckers (as in the coppice sense)

From our biannual staff meeting:
destreza - dexterity
hambruna - famine
pericia - expertise
cherepo - the loudly chirping lizard living outside my hotel room

From the painful audit that I didn't have the level of vocabulary necessary to translate for even though that was my main involvement:
cotizacion - bids, quotes
comprabantes - vouchers
delinquent account - saldo vencido (and totally not saldo delinquente which connotes little car-stealing, smoking in the bathroom accounts)

From the thousand interviews we had dealing with the milk/meat value chain:
pichinga - big container (this word only exists in Nicaragua)
arancel - tarriff
novillo - steer
pauta - pattern
ubre - udder (my favoritest new word)
pugna - conflict
potrero - paddock
errar - to brand
parida - calving
reductasa - reductaze (had to look that one up in English too)

From driving around:
marginal - service road
timon - steering wheel
desnivel - ramp
saca la lengua - to use blinker (or what you yell when someone doesn't use their indicator)
fulano - someone  you don't know (ie, The guy on the bus said...)
deacachimba - awesome (strong. not for polite company)
tuanis - awesome
chocho - awesome

This is fairly standard practice. Comparing notes with our guide at Mombacho, he totally whipped out his own vocab list. Really.

I'd have to a whole book for slang.