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.

Words and phrases (official or jargon)

Here are some words I recently learned in Colombia. When you are unaware of your surroundings (e.g., when you fall asleep in the car unintentionally), you are “foquiado (m), foquiada (f)”. When you have nothing to do, you are “desparchado (m), desparchada (f)”. And when you’re not hungry, you’re “desganado (m), desganada (f)”. For example, if you buy only a cappuccino at a café and the employee asks you if you want something to eat, too, and you say “no, thank you”, the employee may ask you, “¿Estás desganado?”. “Shuffle” on a music player is “aleatorio” and “payment”, such as “making a payment”, is “pago”.

Café words

When I travel, I often go to a café to work and to be close to people who speak the local language and jargón. In Colombia, the café employees like to share words in our native languages. Today, I shared the English words “sympathetic” and “apathetic” with them and they shared the Spanish words “acongojado (m) acongojada (f)” and “carizbajo (m), carizbaja (f)” with me. In Spanish, “sympathetic” means “simpático (m) simpática (f)” and “apathetic” means “apático (m) apática (f)”. In Colombia, when someone says, “¿Estás acongojado?” or “¿Estás carizbajo?”, these phrases can mean the equivalent of “Are you sad?” in English. Not to forget, the local jargon is often able to change the meaning of a word or phrase.