Pardon Me Boy...
04/09/07 08:08 AM Filed in: Mexico
In restaurants, Mexicans and old Mexico hands signal for the waiter by shouting, "¡Joven!" Means "Boy!"
In my admittedly limited experience, I've only heard Norteamericano visitors and newbies call out "¡Señor!" I've never heard anyone say "¡Mesero!" (Waiter!) My friend Paul Latoures, looming menacingly, growls, "¡Oy Joven!" A trembling waiter scuttles over to our table, tugging his forelock. I badly want to emulate Paul. But I don't want to come off as an arrogant American.
(Not that Paul is one, mind you.)
As I thought about political correctness, I remembered the old song, "Chattanooga Choo-Choo". I'd always visualized a nice couple on the platform, she with a veil and he in a fedora, asking a tow-headed ten-year-old, "Pardon me boy..." Now it dawns on me that Mack Gordon and Harry Warren were probably imagining an elderly negro porter, not a youth. That kind of talk was acceptable for the times. Many people probably didn't even see it as disrespectful.
Today of course, virtually no American would refer to a black person of any age as "boy". It's demeaning, insulting.
Expressions that would seem rude or insensitive in the USA aren't taken that way in Mexico. It's common to nickname someone Gordo (Fatty) or Calvo (Baldy). In fact, a mesero, keeping track of separate checks at our table, wrote at the top of mine, "Calvo". Humph. That's no way to earn a good tip, Joven.
I've inured myself to the use of Joven. The other day, Jean and I were lunching with two other couples. I signaled for the waiter. ¡Joven! Someone commented on my increasingly free use of the term, triggering a discussion along the lines of this post, about political correctness, about the "Chattanooga Choo-Choo".
At that point, my friend Will, in a fine tenor, burst into:
Perdoneme joven,
¿Está el tren de la Chihuahua?
In my admittedly limited experience, I've only heard Norteamericano visitors and newbies call out "¡Señor!" I've never heard anyone say "¡Mesero!" (Waiter!) My friend Paul Latoures, looming menacingly, growls, "¡Oy Joven!" A trembling waiter scuttles over to our table, tugging his forelock. I badly want to emulate Paul. But I don't want to come off as an arrogant American.
(Not that Paul is one, mind you.)
As I thought about political correctness, I remembered the old song, "Chattanooga Choo-Choo". I'd always visualized a nice couple on the platform, she with a veil and he in a fedora, asking a tow-headed ten-year-old, "Pardon me boy..." Now it dawns on me that Mack Gordon and Harry Warren were probably imagining an elderly negro porter, not a youth. That kind of talk was acceptable for the times. Many people probably didn't even see it as disrespectful.
Today of course, virtually no American would refer to a black person of any age as "boy". It's demeaning, insulting.
Expressions that would seem rude or insensitive in the USA aren't taken that way in Mexico. It's common to nickname someone Gordo (Fatty) or Calvo (Baldy). In fact, a mesero, keeping track of separate checks at our table, wrote at the top of mine, "Calvo". Humph. That's no way to earn a good tip, Joven.
I've inured myself to the use of Joven. The other day, Jean and I were lunching with two other couples. I signaled for the waiter. ¡Joven! Someone commented on my increasingly free use of the term, triggering a discussion along the lines of this post, about political correctness, about the "Chattanooga Choo-Choo".
At that point, my friend Will, in a fine tenor, burst into:
Perdoneme joven,
¿Está el tren de la Chihuahua?
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