Fistro Tops List of Most Common Written Slang Terms in Spain
Some excellent examples of that can be found in a list released this week by SpinVox, a company that has designed software to convert the spoken word into text, such as for sending email or cell phone text messages. It compiled a list of the top 10 slang words used in email, text messages and blogs in Spain. Tops on the list is one I wasn't able to find in any mainstream dictionary is fistro, a term of contempt popularized by the comedian Chiquito de la Calzada. You won't find the second and third top slang words in the dictionary either.
A few of the top 10 can be found in the Diccionario de la Lengua Española of the Royal Spanish Academy, however. They are No. 4, canijo, which comes from a Latin American term for a small dog and means a small or weak person; No. 7, quinqui (spelled kinki in popular usage), referring to people belonging to groups that have been marginalized; No. 9, petardo, another term of contempt (it also is also a nonslang word for "firecracker" and has the same origin as the English word "petard"); and No. 10, pasmarote, sometimes translated as twit, often a person who is overly interested in trivial things.
Although English words are commonly used in Spanish slang, only one of them made the list: No. 8, friqui (pronounced the same as "freaky"), a strange person.
Rounding out the top 10, in order, are words that haven't yet been accepted by the authoritative Spanish dictionary. They are piltrafilla, a word popularized by a commercial for Calvo tuna and meaning a disorganized person; mal quedas, a reference to those who don't keep their promises; and quillo or quilla, a word you might call a friend; and picho, a synonym for a companion or close friend.
References: PeriodistaDigital, Movilonia.com, 20 Minutos, MadridPress.com.
Comments
Thank you for the nice article!!
It is very interesting to see what are the most popular slang words!
It is also very interesting to see that slang can be used worldwide after becoming very popular in Spain. Often it is accepted in other countries where people have for example Spanish as a second language.
It also indicates that all languages are changing all the time. This probably means that no language will be the same within ten years.
Maybe a good motivation to keep learning languages!!
I have heard that friqui (pronounced the same as “freaky”) is used for a nerd or a computer freak rather than a strange person.
Yes: friki, or friqui is the Spanish term for “geek” or “nerd”, but also for a rather wide arrange of persona which are related to one or another “geek-ish” hobbies (role playing, computer games, miniature painting, devoted to sci-fi and fantasy settings, etc.)
However, the term also refers to freak people and was popularized by a television show called “Cronicas Marcianas” where one of its main features was to invite deviant people to be interviewed.
So making things short: friki is either a geek and/or a strange person of some short.