Stuck

Roadblocks. Construction. Street light outages. Metro stops. Bus Drivers. The street noises filter through the mustard yellow drape of my rented room.  I am currently lying face down, chin fighting with the pillow over the better view of my computer screen.  I have found the (il)legal sight for watching US tv shows-and I am now more caught up on my series than perhaps any of the other suckers. Such is the week.  Cuevana sounds like a cave in Monty Python and the Holy Grail--not an illegal internet site to view pirated copies of US movies.  It sounds like the Insula of Quijote, or the Utopia of Moore. Welcome to globalization.

The appropriation of non-Spanish products into the Lexicon of well, Spanish is fascinating.  Yew-tuve, Cólgate, Escaype, Kleenex, Weefee, Cesi, or the most popular choice, guiri.

Guiri, is a colloquial term used to refer to tourists in Spain.  And, despite the etimological studies placing its origin in the Civil Wars of the Queen Christina in the 19th century, (please see footnote), the term actually has a less exotic history.  Guiri is a mispronunciation of the American term Greeny--referring to the Green Party and to the now environmentally safe cleaning products.  Greeni--> Guiri.  There is also a possible though less accepted origin of the word, referring to the 1862 American First Legal Tender Act.  In 1862, in the Civil War, the US Government issues its first paper notes--"Greenbacks".  Given the intimate relationship between Americans and the Spanish nation through tourism, an American tourist was also known as a "Guiri".

Footnote:
Nombre con que, durante las guerras civiles del siglo XIX, designaban los carlistas a los partidarios de la reina Cristina, y después a todos los liberales, y en especial a los soldados del gobierno. (DRAE)