rhyming and it's importance to us
by us i mean hispanics, or at least people from my country, who tought me all of these expressions and phrases.
every language feels a little foreign to me, it all seems a little abstract to my robotic brain. growing up it was fascinating to me to hear the older people around me use such complex rhymes just to convey a funny little comment. years later i realized that is not a common thing in all places. i started noticing our very strange obsession with rhyming, from complex and deep songs and poetry made by the many verse fixated artists to the most mundane conversation between two ladies in the line for the bus, from gauchos centuries ago eloquently insulting (or simply entertaining) each other to the sound of the guitar in the payadas, to the freestyle battles (peleas de gallos) made in parks to the sound of some rap beats or someone doing beatbox. it is everywhere and i will forever be grateful for living in such a linguistically rich place.
introduction out of the way, i will show you a list of my favorite commonly used rhyming expressions and phrases, along with their translations and explainations on how we use them
phrases
- "apa la papa", apa is just an expression of amazement, la papa (the potato) is just added for no particular reason other than it rhymes and that makes it funny
- "entre dicho y hecho hay mucho trecho", an unnecesarily complicated way of saying "easier said than done" (between saying and doing, there is a big stretch)
- "me extraña, araña, que siendo mosca no me conozca y siendo sapo tenga pestañas", a very unnecesarily complicated way of saying that someones actions surprise you: it puzzles me, spider, that being a fly [you] dont recognize me and that being a toad [you] have eyelashes (the 'you' is not specified in spanish, it could be a different second person pronoun). it does have shortened and more common variations, i just really like the full one
- "la ley del embudo: la mas linda con el mas boludo", like in the apa la papa one, the rhyme here is merely for comedic effect (the law of the funnel: the prettiest [girl, in this case] with the stupidest [boy])
- "donde entra la risa entra la longaniza", just a funny way of saying that funny people have better chances of successfully flirting: where the laugh can go in, so can the sausage (slang for dick)
- "entre broma y broma la verdad se asoma", sort of like saying "joke.... unless?": between joke and joke, the truth peeks through
- "al de rojo me lo cojo", i can't even think of an equivalent you could say in english: i fuck the one (dressed) in red
- "el de verde me la muerde", similar to the one above: the one (dressed) in green bites (my dick)
- "alpiste, perdiste", basically the same as "you snooze, you lose": canary grass, you lost (the only reason canary grass is said is to make it rhyme)
- "el que se fue a cevilla perdio su silla", it has a similar use the the one above: the one that went to cevilla (city in spain) lost their chair