The Proliferation of Abbreviations in Mexican Spanish

Standard abbreviations of household words are as much a part of Mexican Spanish as they are of English.  Over the years, shortened forms of words have been creeping into everyday use, exacerbated somewhat by the younger members of the population whose communications fit a new set of parameters defined by text messages, chat room one liners, and email.

Time-saving alternatives to longer words

Appliances are a natural candidate for saving time speaking. One of the most common is fridge instead of refrigerator, in Spanish refri instead of refrigerador—and conge for congelador followed on the heels of refri.

La tele for televisión, has been in use for as long as most people can remember.  La micro will do for horno de microondas or microwave oven —not to be confused with el micro of public transport fame— and la laptop, already conveniently Anglicized to avoid the painfully Castillian ordenador portátil, is rendered la lap.

The supermarket or supermercado, became el súper with no problems, and other outlets followed suit.  The stationery store was reduced from la papelería to la pape, and the gas station or gasolinería simply to la gas.  The now-ubiquitous WhatsApp messaging system is most often referred to as el Güats.

Place names are not exempt

Next up for this treatment were names of places frequented by the bourgeois and their Bohemian peers alike.

Coyoacán, a popular spot in the south of Mexico City for cafés, book shops, street entertainment, and handicraft stalls, goes simply as “Coyo,” and Cuernavaca and Tepoztlán, popular weekend hangout towns for chilangos, have been shortened for one reason or another to Tepoz and Cuerna, respectively.

The origin of such abbreviations is impossible to pin down, although the latter two seem to be more a matter of class distinction than oratorical convenience.

Anyone proclaiming their intention of joining the miles-long lines of cars leaving the capital for “Cuerna” on a Saturday morning is saying more about where they are likely to be staying —someone’s home with a pool, or an up-scale boutique hotel or BnB— than about their city of destination.

Linguistic terms between social classes

Linguistic habits cross class borders, however, and sooner or later they come to be used by all.  Just as the proletarian chido —or “cool”— and others are standard fare among the juniors, Aca instead of Acapulco and o sea* are also staples of working class conversation.

It’s possible, but by no means demonstrable, that friction between the classes generates the desire to be constantly coming up with new adulterations of language, if only to keep the others permanently passé.

*O sea literally means “in other words,” although its current use is more akin to the English “like,” in phrases such as “and I was, like, what?”—y yo, o sea, ¿qué?  Another translation could be “I mean,” and it’s also used as a filler while thinking about what to say next.