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Hello, dear friends. Another week and another word to add to your dictionary of the oh so vivid Dominican language!
Our hope is to facilitate a better understanding between Dominicans and foreigners, which is why we’re bringing you one Dominican word per week, to help you comprehend our unusual, yet creative form of speech.
The word of this week is “Boche”. The word “Boche” is used by Dominicans to describe a type of insult, mostly given to a person who butts into a conversation that’s “none of their business”, as our American readers might say. “Boche” is also used to describe a “telling off”.
“Boche”
– a type of insult given to a person who gets into a conversation that doesn’t involve them
– used to mean “telling off”
Example 1:
Dominican 1: *to Dominican 2* Anoche gocé mucho en la discoteca. / Last night I had a blast at the disco.
Dominican 2: Yo también. Y más a las 2am, cuando empezó el Happy Hour. ¡Voy a volver esta noche! / Me too. Especially at 2am when the Happy Hour started. I’m going back tonight!
Dominican 3: *Jumps in the conversation* ¿Ustedes no creen que salen mucho? / Don’t you guys think go out too much?
Dominican 4: Tú no tiene’ que ve’ con eso. No ‘tan hablando contigo. / That’s none of your business, they’re not talking to you.
That right there, my friends, is a boche. And it’s most often used, ironically, by someone who isn’t in the conversation either, but who was also listening enough to hear the whole thing! Or, In this case, for example, the “boche” could have been given by Dominican 2.
Example 2:
Dominican 1: ¡Mi jefa me dio un boche! / My boss gave me a telling off
Dominican 2: ¿Por qué? ¿Que hiciste? / Why? What did you do?
Dominican 1: Bueno, llegué tarde a la oficina… / Well, I got to the office late.
So far we have learnt jumo, guayarse, deg