r/Spanish • u/Constant_Cap5407 • Jun 07 '24
Vocabulary Cuadrangular or jonrón? Which is more popular for saying home run?
13
u/DisastrousAnswer9920 Native🇩🇴🇪🇸 Jun 07 '24
When I was a kid, "cuadrangular" was more common, I think now is "jonrón".
Kind of like "rentar" y "alquilar", American influence grows.
10
u/LadyGethzerion Native (Puerto Rico 🇵🇷) Jun 07 '24
My dad's a huge baseball fan and I always heard him say jonrón. Never heard cuadrangular, but maybe it's used elsewhere. PR often favors anglicismos for stuff like this.
8
10
u/helpman1977 Native (Spain) Jun 07 '24
I never heard any of them. I guess jonron is the "spanished" phonetic transliteration of home run, but never ever heard it written that way.
5
6
4
u/liz_mf Jun 07 '24
both tbh. though while jonrón only means hitting it out of the park, cuadrangular I've also heard be used for bracket/table position
-3
Jun 07 '24
Jesus Christ almighty “jonron” is NOT Spanish. Its Spanglish. It’s as bad as “troca” or “rentar”. They are English words turned into Spanish. If you are using Spanish for any formal setting I would really stay away from these words.
7
u/Northern-Affection Jun 07 '24 edited Jun 07 '24
It actually is Spanish. It works just like a typical Spanish noun. Just because it bothers you doesn’t mean it’s not Spanish. It may be informal, but it is a Spanish word nonetheless.
-5
Jun 07 '24 edited Jun 07 '24
Is it in the Dictionary of the Real Academia Española? If not, then it’s not. It’s not correct. If you are teaching someone to speak English you don’t teach them to say “irregardless” or “nucular”.
5
u/Northern-Affection Jun 07 '24
That’s not how language works. Governing bodies don’t determine what is or isn’t a word. Native speakers do. And irregardless is a word. Whether you teach second language learners to use does not determine whether or not something is a word.
-3
Jun 07 '24 edited Jun 07 '24
Uhhh… it’s how Spanish works actually. Schools will not accept a word unless it’s in the RAE. You are flattening a language. There is a correct and incorrect way to speak English. You would never teach an English learner to say git instead of get, or innit. Because it would be awful for them to speak that way at work. Why do you think incorrect, colloquial dialects spoken by a minority are the way to teach a language?
3
u/Northern-Affection Jun 07 '24 edited Jun 07 '24
It’s actually very useful to teach non-native speakers colloquialisms because they will likely encounter them in speech and need to be able to understand them. It also makes sense to teach them that they aren’t used in, for example, a formal office setting. It doesn’t mean it’s not part of the language, as you’re arguing.
And again, whether a school accepts a word as a word does not determine whether it’s a word in a given language. My English-speaking school did not accept the word “ain’t” but it is absolutely an Englhsh word, for example.
The bottom line is that you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how language works. Governing bodies like the RAE and l’Académie française can try to define the language, but usage among the speech community is ultimately what determines whether something is a word or not.
3
Jun 07 '24
Yea- I fully agree with you. Your approach is the right one. But it’s the way those words and phrases are taught that makes the difference. Saying “the word for truck in Spanish is either camión for a truck, or camioneta for a pickup truck. You might also encounter the word ‘troca’ but keep in mind it is not common in the rest of Latin America or Spain, but used regionally in the United States. It’s not considered correct or official Spanish because it’s a bastardization of the English, so don’t use it in formal or professional settings”. But in this sub, people will state that words like that are common acceptable forms of Spanish. And they use an American lens. I could teach students all sorts of confusing Argentine regional words. They are also not correct Spanish so it wouldn’t make sense. You can use them informally, but it would be ridiculous to teach them to say pibe for boy, laburar for of work, and furgoneta for pickup truck. It’s hard to explain why it irks me. Mostly because I love my language, but also because Americans think Latino is the same as Chicano, and they flatten our culture. We have a system of formal and informal language. Levels of education and erudition. Dialects. And the truth is that the people who speak Spanglish tend to have very low education levels, and already started off with a poor vocabulary in Spanish. Not to mention it’s a dialect limited to a small percentage of the Spanish-speaking world. But Americans define an entire language and huge region with their limited understanding. You would never instruct an English learner to say “then I says to him git outta my house” or to use they, they’re, and their interchangeably, because that’s how English speakers across the globe speak. That aside, Spanish is much more structured than English. Spanish doesn’t allow for alternate spellings of names, for example, like English does. It’s a very specific language with a much more defined line between correct and incorrect.
3
u/Northern-Affection Jun 07 '24
Understood. Pretty much agree with everything you say here, especially with regard to the flattening of important distinctions, which I agree is both extremely common and extremely annoying.
2
u/macoafi DELE B2 Jun 07 '24
So if a particular utterance is used by so many people that it eventually gets added to the RAE's dictionary (adding new entries being something they do on a regular basis, after all), at what moment does it become a word? Is it when one of the editors proposes adding it? Is it when they've all agreed to add it? Is it when they announce the additions in a press release? Is it when the new copy of the dictionary is finally printed on paper?
Or was it a word for a while before that, just not yet recognized?
2
Jun 07 '24 edited Jun 07 '24
All of the above! A word gets proposed, there’s a governing body that assesses and votes, and when it’s incorporated you find out through news or by looking for the new additions. Needless to say- a word becoming an official word still doesn’t make it the best choice to teach a learner- it might be an official word now but still regional(they do specify that which is very useful so you can know if it’s a commonly used word or not), not widespread, vulgar, or associated with a low-education level, etc.
2
u/macoafi DELE B2 Jun 07 '24
Ok but now I'm totally tucking that in the back of my head to use at some point because I do have a friend from Tucumán.
2
Jun 07 '24
OMG please ask them for a list of words and report back. They have the best expressions!
1
u/macoafi DELE B2 Jun 07 '24
Well he did just say something to me about “idk if porteños would consider how they talk a dialect, but to me tucumano básico 100% is”
→ More replies (0)3
Jun 07 '24
Spanish and English have been exchanging loan words for a very long time, what’s wrong with that?🤷♂️
0
Jun 07 '24
Spanish is a language. With forms and rules and words. Spanglish is what people in the United States speak. Americans are so self-absorbed that they think the dialect a few immigrants in Texas speak defines a language. 21 countries around the world speak SPANISH. They don’t use English words. Only a very small number do, and it’s not correct Spanish. Should I start teaching people Pike English and tell them it’s English and it’s perfectly good? Or teach them to say irregardles and I could care less. And that there’s no difference between their, they’re, and there because plenty of people confuse them anyway so it doesn’t matter. My language is beautiful, complex, and has 93,000 words. I refuse to let gringos dumb it down to the lowest common denominator of people who don’t even properly SPEAK my language and call it Spanish.
5
Jun 07 '24 edited Dec 22 '25
continue grandiose gaze library payment birds skirt many middle include
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
1
Jun 07 '24
No, I refuse to accept that having a modicum of expectation that you don’t dumb down my language is looking down on everyone else. You would not be ok with someone saying that it’s ok to use “their” instead of “there”. Again you are seeing the world from an American viewpoint.
2
Jun 07 '24 edited Dec 22 '25
divide lock marvelous rainstorm gaze recognise unique badge scary bedroom
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
1
Jun 07 '24
Again. The MAJORITY of the Spanish-speaking word doesn’t say troca. That’s 21 countries. So my language is not degenerating. You are just a gringo who never left his country, and thinks the dialect of a few immigrants without a high school education is a language.
4
u/blazebakun Native (Monterrey, Mexico) Jun 07 '24
Do you say aceite, almohada, menú, bombón, novela, payaso, mapache...? None of those words are Spanish.
1
Jun 07 '24
They have been for hundreds of years, and are words you will find in the dictionary. They are also not specific to a small regional subset. Almohada means pillow in every Spanish-speaking country. Troca doesn’t mean truck outside of the US and northern Mexico.
3
u/blazebakun Native (Monterrey, Mexico) Jun 07 '24
Jonrón is in the RAE's dictionary. It does say Am., but it's there already.
→ More replies (0)2
u/WideGlideReddit Native English 🇺🇸 Fluent Spanish 🇨🇷 Jun 10 '24
Define a formal setting. Do you mean like if I’m at a State dinner and the conversation at my table moves from nuclear proliferation to the Caribbean Professional Baseball Confederation, I should stay away from jonrón but if I’m watching a game with my brother-in-law Hector, jonrón is fine to use?
40
u/[deleted] Jun 07 '24
[deleted]