Cancha and Canchero – just what do they mean?

Argentina is a country which has been influenced by the castilla language of the first Spanish colonialists and the indigenous languages spoken by the native Indians – a mixture of Quichua, Guaraní and Mapuche, depending on the region of the country you might happen to be referring to.

The rich mixture of violently opposed heritages, combined with the development of lunfardo in Buenos Aires during the late 19th century, has gradually over time turned Argentine Spanish (or Castellano, as Argentines dub it) into a very particular form of Spanish with an incredible range of words and phrases such as “cancha” and “canchero.”

Cancha

While in most Spanish-speaking countries “cancha” is used to refer to a football pitch or other kind of delineated area marked out for the purposes of a sports match, it can also be used in a number of other contexts.

Cancha

Cancha

In Argentina, the term “cancha” comes from a combination of the Quichua and Spanish languages and it was first referred to the idea of a football pitch or sporting arena thanks to a popular sport that the native Indians in Argentina used to play – a sport very similar in style to the team game, Chueca, that Spanish colonialists in the country were fond of playing.

The “cancha” for this game was rectangular in shape and either lined by a series of rocks or simply delineated by creating markings on the ground. Each team player was armed with a long stick, similar in style to that of a hockey stick, and the object of the game was to try and knock the ball out of the delineated area.

Chueca game

However, “cancha” can also be used in Argentina to refer to someone who has lots of experience or lots of freedom in which to do something. Someone who has lots of “cancha” in an area, is very experienced in that area.

Canchero

Whereas the word “cancha” is used in other Spanish-speaking countries, “Canchero” is a word particular to Argentina and developed during the late 19th century as part of Buenos Aires’ lunfardo.

The word “canchero” is used to refer to someone who needs to stand out in front of the crowd by using words or vocabulary and by performing actions which will cause attention and make people take notice. For example, instead of asking if you want to go for a coffee (café in Spanish), a “canchero” might ask you to join him for a “feca” – which is the lunfardo play on words for café.

Everything that the “canchero” does is to seem important in the eyes of others and to draw attention to his words and actions from others. He is pedantic and rather condescending at times too.

“Canchero” originated from the Quichua-Spanish word “cancha,” referring to someone who “has cancha” or a person who is “canchero” and who, if we turn it into its verb form, likes to “cancherear,” which describes the actions of a person who tries to show-off or make a display in order to be able to control and dominate the situation at hand.

Up the apples, she’s got a lovely pair of bacons – what do East Londoners mean?

Cockney rhyming slang is jam-packed with references to fruit, vegetables and other kinds of foods. This East London working-class slang, structured around a simple rhyming system, was the East Londoner’s language code which prevented bosses, the police and other authority figures from understanding what was being said.

Some of the most popular food-related cockney rhyming phrases include “apples and pears,” “bacon and eggs” and “custard and jelly.” Below, we’ve compiled a fairly extensive list of food rhymes and their East London meaning…

cockney_slang

Classic London Cockney Rhyming Slang Typography Print By Rebbie

apples and pears

The phrase “apples and pears” rhymes with “stairs” and so is commonly used to refer to anything which might be going on above. You might say to someone, looking for an item they’ve lost, “It might be up the apples,” meaning it might be upstairs and therefore worth checking.

bacon and eggs

Bacon and eggs rhymes with legs and is used when you want to compliment a woman. You might say, “You’ve got a lovely pair of bacons,” meaning that she has a really good looking pair of legs.

custard and jelly

“Shall we watch a bit of custard?” might be a question someone would ask if they wanted to watch the television, as custard and jelly refers directly to the telly (television).

loaf of bread

If you’re ever told to, “use your loaf,” in the East End of London, it’s because you’re being told to “use your head” or to think/act smarter. “Head” rhymes with “bread,” and so the phrase is shortened from “use your loaf of bread (head)” to “use your loaf!”

mince pies

When a guy from the East End of London wants to chat up a lovely lady that he sets his eyes on, he might say, “You’ve got lovely mincies.” “Mince pies”, rhymes with “eyes” and… the conclusion to be drawn from the rest is quite clear.

peas in the pot

When you walk into a room and someone says, “It’s a bit peasy in here,” they mean that it’s a bit hot. “Peas in the pot” rhymes with “hot,” hence the use of the phrase, “peasy.”

plates of meat

“Plates of meat” rhymes with “feet.” You might hear someone say, “Be careful of me (my) plates,” if they’re frightened that someone else is about to stand on their feet.

potatoes in the mould

A shortened version of “potatoes” in the East End of London is the word “taters.” The phrase “potatoes (taters) in the mould” rhymes with “cold” and is used when someone is feeling a little nippy. You might hear someone say, “It’s a bit taters in here.”

rabbit and pork

If you happen to be spending a lot of time with someone who talks and talks and talks and never seems to want to just be quiet, you might want to say, “Wow! You can really rabbit, can’t you!” The phrase “rabbit and pork” rhymes with “talk” and is used to talk about the big chatterboxes in our lives.

tea leaf

“He’s a little tea leaf,” is used to accuse someone of being a “thief.”

As is made evident from the examples above, the parts of the rhymes which don’t actually match the sound of the word they are referring to is the word that is normally used in Cockney Rhyming Slang. For instance, in “bacon and eggs”, “eggs” rhymes with “legs”, but “bacon” is the part of the phrase which is used when you want to tell a woman she has a lovely pair of “bacons” (legs).

By opting for the section of the rhyme which doesn’t actually rhyme, the secret meaning of the phrase was kept even more of a secret amongst the working classes of East London. Secrecy to Cockney Rhymers means everything.

 

Upcoming translation events in April

April will be an interesting and busy month for translators. Below you will find plenty of conferences, webinars, workshops and events taking place all over the world!

 1

Marcom translation process – challenges and solutions, The Localization Institute, webinar.

2

Translation Technology Showcase, TAUS, webinar.

Including Localization in Your Change Management Process, The Localization Institute, webinar.

3

ATISA 2014. American Translation and Interpreting Studies Association, New York, New York USA.

Language at the core: Mega Trends in Globalization, Women in Localization, Mountain View, California USA

3-4

Public Service Interpreting and Translation, FITISPos-UAH, Madrid, Spain

3-5

American Translation & Interpreting Studies Assn (ATISA). 7th Biennial ATISA Conference: Where Theory and Practice Meet. New York, NY. Saint Paul, MN. USA.

5

Carolina Association of Translators & Interpreters (CATI). 2014 CATI Annual Conference.
Spartanburg, SC, USA.

Delaware Valley Translators Association (DVTA). Spring Seminar: Success in the 21st Century. Radnor, PA, USA.

7

TERMINOLOGÍA TÉCNICA DEL PERITAJE CALIGRÁFICO. PARTE 1. Colegio de Traductores Públicos de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. Argentina.

ESPECIALIZACIÓN EN DOBLAJE DE MEDIOS AUDIOVISUALES. MÓDULO 1. Colegio de Traductores Públicos de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. Argentina.

ESPECIALIZACIÓN EN DOBLAJE DE MEDIOS AUDIOVISUALES. TODOS LOS MÓDULOS. Colegio de Traductores Públicos de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. Argentina.

ESPECIALIZACIÓN EN TRADUCCIÓN DE MEDIOS AUDIOVISUALES. DOBLAJE + SUBTITULADO OPCIÓN MATUTINA. Colegio de Traductores Públicos de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. Argentina.

ESPECIALIZACIÓN EN TRADUCCIÓN DE MEDIOS AUDIOVISUALES. DOBLAJE + SUBTITULADO OPCIÓN VESPERTINA. Colegio de Traductores Públicos de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. Argentina.

8

Atril Déjà Vu X3 – Try it, love it (online event)

LA CORRECCIÓN DE ESTILO: CLAVES PARA UNA REDACCIÓN CLARA Y PRECISA. Colegio de Traductores Públicos de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. Argentina.

9

ENVIRONMENTAL TRANSLATION. Colegio de Traductores Públicos de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. Argentina.

10-11

TAUS Executive Forum, TAUS, Tokyo, Japan

How to Become the Ultimate Salesperson, Common Sense Advisory, Inc., Barcelona, Spain

13-16

Fifth Annual Translation Conference, Translation and Interpreting Institute, Hamad bin Khalifa University, Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing, Doha, Qatar.

14

CURSO DE ESPECIALIZACIÓN: MEDICINA INTEGRAL PARA TRADUCTORES. MÓDULO 1: QUÍMICA BIOLÓGICA. Colegio de Traductores Públicos de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. Argentina.

CURSO DE ESPECIALIZACIÓN: MEDICINA INTEGRAL PARA TRADUCTORES. PRIMER AÑO: TODOS LOS MÓDULOS. Colegio de Traductores Públicos de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. Argentina.

15

Recruitment Overview, The Localization Institute, webinar

16

Medical Translation 101: Understanding Medical Terminology, Alexandria Project, the Translation Knowledge Hub, webinar.

17

Localization at Startups, The International Multilingual Computing User Group (IMUG), Los Altos, California, USA.

22

International Conference on Language, Literature and Translation, Faculty of Foreign Languages-University of Jordan, APETAU, Voices in Asia​, Amman, Jordan.

24-25

TNW Conference 2014, The Next Web, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

24-26

ELIA Networking Days Riga, ELIA (European Language Industry Association), Riga, Latvia.

25

TCeurope Colloquium, Conseil des Rédacteurs Techniques, Aix-en-Provence, France

25-26

V Congreso Internacional Esletra, Esletra, TREMÉDICA , New York City, New York USA.

25-27

2014 Annual CTA Conference, Colorado Translators Association, Boulder, Colorado USA

26-30

EACL-2014, European Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics, Gothenburg, Sweden.

28

TESAUROS Y CORPUS EN LÍNEA, HERRAMIENTAS PARA LA TRADUCCIÓN INVERSA. Colegio de Traductores Públicos de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. Argentina.

29

Automated Metrics, TAUS, webinar.

30

Developing an In-Country Review Process That Works, The Localization Institute, webinar.

INTERPRETANDO EN CEREMONIAS CIVILES. Colegio de Traductores Públicos de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. Argentina.