There must be a story here

A weird house name I haven’t noticed before.

And what does the floating/falling comma signify?

Más inglés

As Syd explained, “It´s the Montevideo (Portones, Punta Carretas, et al) Shopping model. Throw in an incongruous English word and you become exotic.”

Tienda Inglesa, exotic. Who knew?

Apostrophes

When one possessive apostrophe just isn’t enough

The irony, of course, is that the possessive apostrophe is not used in Spanish. Except in business names in Uruguay, apparently. But two, and backwards? Reminds me of 9s.

Spanglish, Uruguay style

The POP stand from yesterday reminds me of substitutions people make here, generally to shorten words (one of the trickier words we tried when we first arrived in Buenos Aires long ago was estacionamiento, which i eight syllables to say “parking.” And indeed, you can see signs that say “parking” here.

So “off” in place of descuento, but why “on line” when the Spanish is en linea?

And what’s with the possessive apostrophe? Guys, in your language there is no possessive apostrophe. (No matter how many years you’ve been dreaming.)

Two (admittedly trivial) reasons to prefer da Spanish As She Is Spoken Here

1

In México, I occasionally posed the following to a local: If I don’t wear a watch, so don’t know what time it is, how do I know when to stop saying buenos días and start saying buenas tardes?

Invariably, the answer came back: at noon. To which I invariably replied, but if I don’t have watch and don’t … never mind.

Here, say buen día and you’re good all day long. (At least in our area of México, that was – rarely – used in parting, as in have a nice day. Blech.)

2

How ya doin’? In México, that simple question involves determining whether your relationship with the askee is formal or informal. ¿Como esta? or ¿Como estas? Here, the second can be the same as the first thanks to the Uruguayos’ habit of dropping The letter S.

Better still, ¿Que tal? works just fine in all but very formal situations.