This post is also available in:
Spanish
Nine months have passed since we started publishing our funny Dominican English Dictionary and so far we have presented 32 Dominicans words, that we are sure have been very useful for a better communication between foreigners and Dominicans.
WIth this column you get one Dominican word per week to help you comprehend our unusual, yet creative form of speech.
The word of this week is “pelelengua”. The word “pelelengua” is used by Dominicans to describe when a person insults another one on an euphoric way without even let him/her talk.
“Pelelengua”
When a Dominican says the word “pelelengua” he or she refers to a very risque insult or a recrimination of an action from one individual to another. For Dominicans a “pelelengua” is like a “boche” but with a little more umph.
*“Pelelengua” is the combination of the words “pela”, which translated into English is “to spank someone” and “lengua”, which is the same as “tongue”, ie, a “pelelengua” is a “spoken spank”.
Example 1:
Dominican 1: ¿Por qué José y Franklin son enemigos?/ Why are Joseph and Franklin are now enemies?
Dominican 2: No se que paso, pero escuché que José le dio una “pelelengua” anoche/I don’t what really happened, but I heard that Joseph insulted him last night
Example 2:
No pude terminar mi trabajo a tiempo y mi supervisor me dio tremenda “pelelengua”/ I couldn’t finish my work on time and my supervisor insulted me in a bad way
So far we have learnt jumo, guayarse, deg