Tuesday, April 17, 2012

When Rednecks Speak Spanish


Look, I realize Taco Bell isn't a Mexican restaurant.  No one talks about their authentic Mexican food, and I'm sure even they would agree.  So if they want to stay away from Spanish, other than the names of actual food items, that's fine.  However, their new marketing slogan is "Live Más", meaning "Live More".  Aside from that being sort of a weird slogan that doesn't make much sense, especially within the context of a fast food restaurant, it does give them a tie with the Spanish language.  And they didn't stop there.  Separately, they recently introduced two new salsas.  All of their salsa packets have mildly humorous sayings on them, but their new salsa verde, which I tried today over lunch, has one particular bit of text, as shown above, that isn't humorous.  One would suppose that it's just meant to be informative.  Except it's not.  I minored in Spanish, and while I'm not fluent enough to watch Univision and enjoy it, I do have very good pronunciation.  And some of the most basic things to pronounce are the colors.  The word for the color green is "verde".  I know how to pronounce it, and it's not "vur-day".  That's maybe how a slow-talking southerner might say it, but it's not right, as the e is much closer to a long a, or at least a short e, but certainly not the u or schwa sound, as proven by real Spanish speakers.  So Taco Bell, stick to your Tex-Mex fast food, which I happen to really love, by the way, and leave the Spanish to those who actually speak it.    

2 comments:

  1. Ha! That's how people down here in Alabama would say it :)

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  2. I didn't realize you minored in Spanish. I took 3 years of it in high school but have forgotten most of it since then and would like to relearn. Any suggestions/insight on how to go about that? (Rosetta Stone, actual courses, etc.)

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