Chopping and changing

Carnivores wanting a chop in a Spanish restaurant or butcher’s get one by asking for una chuleta, one of those words that entered Spanish through the back door of the other languages spoken here. According to the late María Moliner’s Diccionario de Uso del Español, chuleta is a direct descendant of chulla, originally Valenciano - a language that Catalans insistently describe as Catalán, although that’s their quarrel rather than ours. 

There is more to chuleta than a something chopped off a lamb or pig, however, because it is also a crib used by students, vital information usually written on a small piece of paper small enough to smuggle into an exam.

There is a third version of chuleta, and this time it is both a noun and adjective applying to someone (inevitably male despite the feminine ending) who is loud-mouthed, challenging and/or arrogant. 



Jaspy and María Moliner



This chuleta has no links to a carnivorous diet or cheating students, but is a diminutive form of chulo which again is another borrowing according to reliable María Moliner, this time from Andalusí-Romance which in turn took it from the Latin sciolus meaning, of all, things, learned.

Chulo can likewise be a noun or an adjective and has a long list of definitions, some innocuous and others less so.   As far as the Spanish people were once concerned, un chulo was someone born and bred in Madrid neighbourhoods like Lavapies, Chamberri or La Latina although these are now less parochial and noticeably more international than formerly.  

But in the past – as now – Madrileños were not to everybody’s liking and chulo came to describe someone who was overbearing, insolent or arrogant.  Chulo also has the auxiliary meaning of pimp or ponce but a female chula is rarely a procuress or madam, which would be translated as una proxeneta. 

Instead una chula is a woman displaying all the flaws of un chulo - but not always because chula is also an endearment and gives a glimpse of the past when women were expected to be submissive, but reluctantly admired when they weren’t.

Despite possessing so many unedifying translations, there is also a squeaky-clean side to chulo  that has withstood the test of time.  An admiring ¡qué chulo! is as appropriate for 70-year-olds as 17-year-olds because although most slang comes and goes, some words hang around forever and each of them is exclaiming something approximate to cool!