New Year’s Day will forever remind me of tex-mex food, Spanish, and anuses. Yes, anuses. No, nothing strange and sordid. Well, not sordid, anyway.
So, A few years ago, my wife and I were driving home after Christmas and stopped at a tex-mex restaurant that we both like in Waco. Pulling into the parking lot, I noticed that the restaurant’s marquee proudly proclaimed a Spanish translation of “Happy New Year” on one of the busiest streets in town. Or at least, I’m reasonably certain that was the intent. About a decade prior, I graduated from Baylor University, also in Waco, and did so with a Spanish minor. Some questioned the wisdom of this curious pairing with a major in Computer Science. Clearly, there was divine provenance at work. Baylor is, after all, “Thee University”!
As we entered the restaurant, I found a Spanish-speaking employee through a clever combination of racial profiling and overhearing him speak Spanish to another co-worker. Pulling the hispanoablante aside…
me: Um. You know your sign out there? The one that says, “Feliz ano nuevo”?
him: Sî, yes?
me: Well, the “n” in “ano” needs to have a tilde, so it says “año”.
him: Huh?
me: “Ano”. You need to change the “n” to “ñ”. “Ano” means “anus”. The sign doesn’t say, “Happy New Year”. It says, “Happy New Anus”.
him: “Anus”? I don’t know what is this?
me: <Oh boy> Umm. Anus. Part of your bottom? The hole in your bottom? <starts checking his pants for a hole.> Oh, I can’t remember the cuss word in Spanish… Anus. Where poop comes out. <light bulb goes on> Asshole! “Ano” is the medical term for an “asshole”! Not like a person, but the part of your body!
Finally, he got the message and I only had to explain it to a couple more of his co-workers who didn’t seem convinced at first. Not sure if they ever fixed it or not, though.