Traffic and Traffic Jam

Traffic Jam in Medellin

Today, I was in a taxi and the taxi driver used the word, "antrancados". Because I’m still learning Spanish and I don’t understanding everything I hear, I asked him, "How do you use the word 'atrancados' in a sentence? For example, can you say, the cars are 'atrancados'?" The taxi driver responded, "Yes" and told me the origin of the words "trancón" and "trancar". In Colombia, the word "taco" is often used as the equivalent of the English word "traffic" and "trancón" is often used as the equivalent of the English word "traffic jam". The taxi driver explained that, in the past, people secured doors and windows with a thick, strong piece of wood. In Spanish, "palo" is the equivalent of "piece of wood" or "stick" and "tranca" is the equivalent of "a thick, strong piece of wood". After you secure a door or window with a "tranca", it is jammed (it can’t be moved). When cars are in a traffic jam, they can’t be moved. Therefore, the cars are "jammed" or "atrancados". So, "trancar", derived from "tranca", became a reference for the action of "jamming" something and "trancón" became a reference for a "bottleneck" or "traffic jam", because the cars in a traffic jam are jammed (they can’t be moved). We’ll have to save "taco" for another day because I haven’t yet learned how "taco" became a reference for "traffic". Perhaps it's because we jam a lot of food into a taco. Of course, I’ll ask another driver.