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I have been discussing this with several Mexican, Salvadoran, and Argentine friends and no one I know claims to know how the term "gringo" came about. Does anyone out there know the origins of the term? Gracias D
Wow!!! thanks Jessaka, now I feel sheepish, the same derivation is in my Oxford Spanish dictionary, for some reason it never dawned on me to look it up. Perhaps it is a function of that same quirk of testosterone that won't allow me to read the directions before I start to put something together.
I think that it'd be interesting to know that in Brazil, gringo is used for all foreigners, everyone who comes from another country is a gringo
True, but only in part... gringo is used only for europe and USA and probably australia... we don't use it for people from argentina or Jamaica, for example... Argentinos are called "hermanos"
I have been discussing this with several Mexican, Salvadoran, and Argentine friends and no one I know claims to know how the term "gringo" came about. Does anyone out there know the origins of the term? Gracias D
My wife is mexican and she just gave me the answer. The term comes from Japan. During the war the americans all had green uniforms. The Japanese would say "green go" as in leave our country.
yeah, I heard that it was used in the Mexican-American War, but that the American sergeants used to shout at their soliders, when they wanted them to move forth (in their green uniforms) "green-go" The mexicans picked up on this and not knowing what it meant referred to the soliders as it, but spanish-ified 'gringo'
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