Ask A Mexican 3/19/08

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

By Gustavo Arellano

Dear Mexican: Since moving to Aztlán from Boston, I’ve spent so much time with my next-door neighbor from Mexico City that I’ve taken to using the word manito as a term of endearment with my buddies, regardless of who and where they are. It’s been my observation that most Anglos think mano a mano means “man to man.” Being a bit better informed, I believe its literal translation is “hand by hand” and colloquial meaning is “hand-to-hand.” Is manito the diminutive form of hand? Why do Mexicans use this term?
- Not Handy with Español

Dear Beantown Gabacho: I appreciate your re-Reconquista, but tu questions are more over the map than your newfound metropolis. Manito is the elided form of hermanito, which means “little brother,” and it’s just one of many words Mexican men use it to strengthen camaraderie with their amigos - other classics include güey, broder, cabrón, and pinche puto pendejo baboso. Mano a mano means “hand-to-hand” in its literal and colloquial forms and refers to a face-off of any kind, not just the macho type.

The term comes from bullfighting, where a mano a mano is a specific matador competition, and was undoubtedly introduced into gabacho letters by Ernest Hemingway’s “The Dangerous Summer” dispatches for Life in 1960. Gabachos, in their ever-fascinating habit of corrupting Hispanic culture, associated Papa’s masculine prose with the fact that “man” is mano less one vowel, and created a favored cliché for sportscasters and pundits to describe any skirmish involving Mexicans.

And hate to ruin your etymological deducing, but the Latin origins for hermano and mano aren’t the same even though they sound so similar: hermano comes from germanus, which sprung from germen (seed), while the Latin word for hand is manus, probably deriving from the Sanskrit manus - and I say probably because this is ¡Ask a Mexican!, not Scisco Latin Agricola Etymologiae.
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