A lot of bull
Last week we saw a smattering of donkey expressions, so let’s go on to goats… To get us started, it’s good to know that the word chivo is used to refer to the money a housewife uses to by food and other daily necessities. She might say to her husband, for example: “Mi amor, no se te olvide darme lo del chivo.” (“My love, don’t forget to leave me [that of] the goat”, meaning money for the supermarket, of course.)
Female goats, chivas, are “things,” “stuff.” If we don’t want someone to forget his belongings when he or she leaves our apartment, we might say: “Oye, no olvides tus chivas.” If you’ve been looking all over the place for various items and you can’t find them anywhere, you might say: “No encuentro mis chivas en ninguna parte.”
And then there is the scapegoat, the chivo expiatorio. This, in fact, is a technical or biblical term that refers to the animal used by the ancients for symbolically ridding themselves of their sins and wrongdoings. In an elaborate ceremony they would transfer their impurities onto the animal, many times a goat, and then send it off into the wilderness to die, or at least never to be seen again.
These days, however, scapegoats are usually people. The term is used in Spanish the same way it is employed in English, as in: “No seré tu chivo expiatorio.” (“I shall not be your scapegoat.”) Even worse than ending up a scapegoat is finding yourself in the role of a snitch, an informer. These creatures, considered especially abhorrent by all underworld elements, are chivas, but with masculine articles (or demonstrative adjectives, as in the following case) if the snitches are men or boys; the feminine article would be used if they were women or girls. “¡No le hables a ese chiva; él nos delató!” (“Don’t talk to that snitch; he turned us in!”) This is where another handy word comes from: the chivatazo, which is the act of snitching in itself. It is usually used with the verb dar, to give: “Ramón dio el chivatazo antes que pudiéramos alcanzar la reja exterior.” (“Ramón snitched on us before we could reach the outer gate.”)
Last but not least on the goat front is the colorful expression hacer de chivo los tamales, which literally means to make the tamales out of goat meat, but what it really means is to be deceiving, or to try to deceive someone. For example, if we buy a condominium that supposedly comes with luxury lighting and bathroom fixtures, but when moving in we discover that they used the cheapest materials, we were taken for a ride: nos hicieron de chivo los tamales. All this meaning that if you hacer de chivo los tamales, you are saying one thing while doing another; you are deceiving somebody. “Unfaithful” men and women also are known to hacerle de chivo los tamales, in reference to their spouses. And if you are shy and tend to be cowed by a given situation, te chiveas.
Next to the goats are the cows, bulls, and oxen. If several people get together to buy a lottery ticket, for example, they are making una vaquita. They’d have to split the winnings if they were lucky, though. Here is a saying for accomplices, or those who stand by and permit bad things to happen: “Tiene la culpa tanto el que mata la vaca, como el que le agarra la pata.” This means the following: “Just as guilty as he who kills the cow, is he who holds his leg.” In other words, even if you didn’t actually commit the act, but you somehow set it up or inclined events in such a way as to favor their occurrence, you are just as responsible as he who carried out the deed.
Oxen, on the other hand, are known to be just as intelligent as donkeys, so don’t let anyone get off calling you buey, or güey, which is the vulgar form. There is a saying in Spanish which immortalizes the ox while describing his true character: “El que por su gusto es buey, hasta la coyunda lambe.” Translation: “He who is an ox by choice will even lick the straps that bind him.” To put it another way, there are people so dim (as in dumb ox or lummox in English), that they end up being fond of the very thing or things that keep them in that condition. Note: the verb correctly spelled is lamer, not lamber; the latter is the vulgar pronunciation (and spelling), but it really should be used in sayings such as this.There are probably zillions of bull sayings, the most famous of which is agarrar [or coger] al toro por los cuernos [or por las astas], or as we say in English: to take to bull by its horns. And then there is echarle [or soltarle] a alguien el toro (to throw a bull at someone), which is what one does when he or she says something very disagreeable, like really bad news, without any previous hint at what’s coming; it’s like getting hit by a truck in a figurative sense. And, finally — for today at least — there is ver [or mirar] los toros desde el andamio [or balcón, or barrera] (to watch the bulls from behind the barrier), which alludes to a situation in which someone comments about something he or she has seen as if they had really exposed themselves to danger, when in reality they kept at a safe distance.
There are still a good deal of animal sayings to go through. But if you are getting bored with them, let me know, and we’ll move on to something else. Otherwise, we should be able to wrap it up in two or three more columns.
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