Wow those are tough.

Plaste is obviously Plaster

No clue about Nordawn

Guanco Sounds like it might be "One Coat"

Guaretete may be Water Tight

And Pocorn is Popcorn as in that shit you spray on the ceiling that looks like popcorn.

ño Val, me la pusistes en chino.

Nordawn: knock down. ?????

that is very funny though!

tony

Val:
Is this for real? or some kind of sick joke?? and can someone please "esplein" to me somting?
is this the new direction of Miami splangish mix with Raegeton??
All i can say is?
Hermanos al rescate del idioma!!
CHARGE!!!!
:)
Carmen

I love it!

ive hard these in the past

Motami (mortar mix)
Koki (chaulking)
cheepi hama (chipping hammer)

Reminds me of a time I worked in a clothes factory in Hialeah and my boss asked me to take two rolls of fabric and put them on what I thought he called the "techo guagua" I said "el techo de cual guagua?" And he answered "El estation wagon!"

This is so FUNNY - you just gotta love..
and I bet ya the guy can not keep up with all the work he has .. GOD BLESS HIM!

caballero! It is funny, but lets not start some kind of Miami Pidgin and end up not speaking either Spanish or English and come up with "CUBONICS". It won't make us better, or improve or preserve our society and culture. Remember ebonics, definitely not good for the kids either. Just a thought!

Cohete :
Once you are exposed to NewYorRican english .. you are inmunized to this stuff ;)
What amazes me is that the LESS English they speak the more adamant they are at using the Spanieglish.
I had the daughter of afriend stay with us for a week and she kept saying she was going to the saouey.. So In just figured she was confusing the whole SouthWest thing in Miami and I let it go until I realized she was talking about the SUBWAY ! This one also thought me the meaning of TROCA

I saw a sign on a chain lik gate the other day that read:

NO PARQUIN DRAGUEY

As many of you know, I have first hand exposure to this contractor lingo. For your enjoyment and miseducation, a few of those terms follow:

Draibol: Dry Wall
Guedarpru: Weatherproof
Guatartai: Watertight
esto: Stud
grei: Grade
bin: Beam
pos: Post
rufeador: Roofer
tailero: Tiler
plastero: Plaster (I always thinks of the word plasta in Spanish or cowpie, so I imagine that their work is pretty bad!!!!)
estin: Steam (for heating)
chutaras: Shutters

And many others...
Plus the reckless translations from Spanish, literally:
White Carpenter: Carpinteria en Blanco (unfinished carpentry, construction carpenter who puts up wood siding or wood beams and plywood in the roof)
Cabineter: Ebanista, Cabinet maker
Final Carpenter: No, it's not the last carpenter on your list, it's somebody who delivers a finished product!!! Also Fine Carpenter, from Spanish carpinteria fina.

I simply think that this is pathetic. They should be learning English, and if that's too difficult for people of a certain age or level of education, well, they at least should use the correct terms in Spanish so they don't become the laughing stock of the world. I think that one needs to speak properly whichever language one prefers to communicate with others, but that this kind of half tongue lingo is totally unacceptable. Many people would not hire somebody with this kind of business card and that's detrimental for both the person who is trying to earn a contract and the trades of construction in general.

Thinking about this, instead of adopting a liberal posture like "Handyman, educate thyself", I think that we should adopt a conservative position on this issue too... I mean, tell the guy that this is not good for business, that he needs to redesign that card to look professional so he can make a(n extra) buck and reach beyond the market he has now... That way, instead of giving the guy a fish we would be teaching him how to fish, he would then be responsible for both fish and fishing gear and would have learnt his lesson. Believe me, that also will make him really grateful, and that means a lot.

As a marketer, I can only say that you tailor your ads (and business cards are a form of ads) to the audience. Perhaps if he were to put "Knock Down" and "Water Tight" on his cards, the people that he's speaking to, the ones that have same exact level of English proficiency as him, would not understand. I think this whole thing is much ado about nothing. What's the difference between these guys and all the weird expressions we used to use at Belen. Like somebody that was an infeliz or a loser was an "inf" in english. A paquete was a package. Etc.

Maybe he should have a business card in real Spanish on one side and in real English on the other side. Otherwise, he will be constrained to earn a livelyhood in a ghettoized island of ignorance. I believe that the human genre can always do better, and that to keep somebody "packed" into a compartimentalized ethnic drawer amounts to socialize his poverty or his lack of instruction, therefore, plays right into a socialistic way of looking at things.
Now, the poor guy is the laughing stock of this blog, when he is probably very talented on his work, and a person of great work ethics. Nothing wrong with helping him to canalize himself into society in better and more professional manner, he would gain a lot of respect for his persona and for his work. There's only a way to go, speaking and expressing yourself well in your language of choice or knowledge, otherwise you're ghetto material and there will be no respect to be enjoyed.

In my "humble" opinion (like I am humble, HA!) the MAIN thing that i get from this is that the man HAS a business card and is producing an income and fighting for HIS american dream.
I personally was forbidden to mix spanish & english in my house, but I dont think that happens a lot in Miami . Most of my "Mariel" friends speak a mixture of I dont know what the fuck language it is.. and No matter how much I tell them "hey STICK with ONE language I undestand BOTH", it seems practically imposible for them to finish a Spanish sentence without adding a LLU NO ? (you know?).
It used to bother me because when I went to school in NYC an accent was a stigma that you HAD to loose, but now it really I see it as a local affectation (like a southern accent) so I have learnt to live with it .
Some of my closer frinnds I DO kid and tell him to GO TO SCHOOL YA PRICK , you are a god damn ingeener. His simple response " A make 250 tousan dollah last lleah jao mush llu make?
Shut me the fuck RIGHT UP !

Let's help him go as far as possible in the achievement of his American Dream! He deserves it!

Oh well. Local color is always nice, but Cervantes and Shakespeare must shaking their heads in disbelief. Mi mami a cada rato me sonaba un buen pellisco con spanglish, casi un gaznaton si me oia hablando barbaridades. God bless her!

Killcastro, would you believe that there's a dealership in Orlando that advertises pickup trucks as "trocas". I just about died laughing when I thought about the Yuma who was told that that was the correct Spanish term for pickup truck by the young PR executive doing their advertising campaign. Go figure!

How about this one you've seen on some doors: PULL / JALE

That's such a pathetic Mexicanism. They cannot figure the mute H of regular Spanish. Maybe they are aping Cristina Saralegui who has forgotten who she is (or was) to ape the lingo of a certain sector of the "low end market" in her low end program.
The same goes for troca. Shame, shame, shame...

The TROCA thing cracks me up. This is REALLY a Puerto Rican affectation and it begins in NY with second Generations Puerto Rican kids trying to talk to their parents. It is like an american adding a vowel at the end of ANY word and thinking THAT is spanish.
I am sure the Puerto Rican "marketing" guy was born in the USA and never heard the word CAMION.
I'll tell ya a funny one. I seldom see spanish TV but my wife does , so shes watching some Novela and advert for Hewlet Packard (The PC company) comes on , and at the end they translated the english slogan verbatim and sounded somethig like "
"HP la que debes comprar"
Now when I heard ACHE PE (HP) I couldn't believe they had said that ! I am rolling on floor luaghing thinking these assholes just called all of their potential customers HIJOS DE PUTA.
I fired an email to their marketing dept, not complaining just tellling them GET A NEW ADVERT AGENCY. The comercial was plugged like 2 days after.
There's a lot of marketing in what I do (web development) so when a client comes and says "and I want the site in spanish too" i shudder because I KNOW what I am going to get from their ad people will be SHIT!
Now as far as the Cubanism, we may be offended by, let us think that is no such word in spanish as "factoria" but we al learned to live with it , theres no word "subway" or "expressway" or "El Super" (refering to the building manager) or even PARQUEO... so let the guy have his TROCA and his Plaste.
What we call a "libreria" is actualy a "biblioteca" so let us not spit upwards.
Even in CUBA we all had angloism that were perfectly happy to live with, everyone who had a GARAGE will tell ya ;)

PS- In China the "Pepsi , it brings good things to life" trasnlated into "Pepsi , it brings your dead relatives back from the grave", and some chinese asshole let THAT one go through !

To all, I posted this with absolutely no intent to belittle or make fun of this guy. On the contrary, regardless of the laughter it gives me to read these cards, I find them to be one of the great monuments to the success of Cuban Americans here in Miami. We came here with nothing and we have adapted the American Dream to our needs. I say Bravo!

[Not Charlie-Bravo, just Bravo ;-)]

I know!

Coño! Now I understand what my American-born buddies went through with our Cuban teacher in elementary school, in Miami, who would try and translate Cubanisms into Americanims. Such as: "The cat has 4 legs - try to find 3!" O sea, "no le busques 3 patas al gato!"

And by the way, for more Mad-magazine quality language and cultural mis-translations and mismatches, try engrish.com

We can all use some "hoomo" in this cold, cruel world.

This is Miami alright!!!

I don't think there is anything wrong with new formations of the English language. It can handle it, it's a dynamic language. The Anglo-Cubanisms are kind of fun, and perfectly valid as a means of expression if you ask me. People of course should know the standard English and Spanish, but there's nothing wrong with blended local vernaculars, it's part of our human experience. Black English has lots of interesting word and grammatical formations, too. It's all an expressive cultural creativity. Meanwhile, over in the Far East, I used to edit English-language copy of Indonesians and was always delighted with the original uses of language and the love of slang, all of it original in use. But the governments of Singapore and Malaysia were constantly scolding their locals for blending Engish with Hokkien and Teochew and Malay dialects, which created a wonderfully evocative dialect called Singlish. We should all enjoy it instead!

Some stuff from Cubans in Union City, NJ

beiby chawe (baby shower)
apoime (appointment)
shorai (Shop Rite supermarket)
echuora (EdgeWater)

And my aunt was asked once about something she thought was very obvious and she told that person: What happens? Are you from planet Tuesday?? LOL

Let us not forget that such accepted Cuban words as "guajiro" and "Fotingo" come from faulty translations such as "War Hero" and "Foot it and go".

In the end, quite amusing, but nothing new, as some of us "dinosaurios" can remember anglicisms from BC-times, such as the "tén-sén (Woolworth's)" in Havana, and, for the "beísbol" fans, "tú-bei" and other colorful terms, such as would make Cervantes spin to redline RPM in his grave.

How about bi ba po ru

Vicks vapor rub!

I had read somewhere that one way for an Anglo like me to spot a Cuban accent, as opposed to others, is that, for example, the terminal "S" on words in a common phrase like "buenos dias" don't show up.

I have no doubt that's a huge generalization and that people whose heritage is from other Spanish-speaking places might do the same thing -- but until I read that I hadn't paid attention to different accents by Spanish-speaking people.

Though even after all these years I'm still stuck at "maybe Cuban" and "probably not."

I use to laugh as a kid when my Mother dared to order our McDonalds food for us,"Jes plees,un Bic Mac and Frin Fry".

She'd even order a Big Mac at a Burger King! hahahaha...God forbid she had to say Whooper,came out as "Wooper"

But hey,even the fast food workers have learned to understand what the hell my Mother was asking for.

"Vete al "Ecker" y compra me un botella de Bicks"

Hahahaha...gotta love it!

Besides doing a real card for the guy in both languages, and sending it to George so he can give it to him, the only other thing I have to say about this subject is that the printer who did the original card is a real scumbag.
How on Earth could he allow a fellow countryman (yes guys, the handyman probably went to see a paisano for help)to leave his premises with such a crappy product?
What kind of respect does the guy has for his costumers and therefore for himself?
A professional with a little bit of self-respect would have edited the card for the handyman and help him not to look funny with a card full or language horrors.
But he didn't give a flying cowpie about it.
He just pocketed the money and sent the handyman on his merry way with a horrible card. The best part, as George says, the card is a monument to the courage and dignity of the handyman. The worst part, the card is another monument to the selfishness of another guy and to the little help one can get at times from the only person in the position to give some advise and teach something of value.
But well, you see worse everyday....

CB, don't get me started on my paisan printers in this town. I could tell you some real horror stories from when I was doing print work. I have also seen the most atrocious translation jobs (obviously supplied by the printer). One local restaurant I used to patronize had a menu printed in Spanish and, well what sounded like English, but wasn't. It was an embarrasment. The menu had translated paticas de puerco (pig's feet) as "pudicas of pork." We all had a good laugh about it at the office because, frankly, it is all to common to see this phenomena in Miami. And we never fail to marvel at the variety of misspelings.

Maybe I should start being a little more proactive like you; but then they'd tell me to mind my own fuckin' business.

Such is life.

You're absolutely right George. To help somebody the first and only condition is the willingness to be helped. Ayudate, que yo te ayudare.
You can be as proactive as possible. Not even as proactive as you would like to be... unfortunately there are people out there that do not want to receive any help. Those are the ones that deserved to be the target of mockery! Thanks God for them, because otherwise the humorists will starve. No stand up act can exist without some idiot making an idiot of his idiotic self!

And there's always the true and tried favorites from Cuba bc, "beisbol and bistec". I stand humbled.