NEW YEAR, NEW ASS

¡Feliz 2024! Just Don’t Forget Your ‘Tilde’ This January 1st

A word of warning for Anglo-Hispanic New Year’s greetings

Happy New Year, everyone!

Bored of hearing/saying that yet? I find it’s usually around mid-January that we all finally give up extending the annual salutation to people we meet for the first time since December.

So although this reminder is a little tardy, it should still prove useful for those whose social circles occasionally straddle the linguistic Río Grande between English and Spanish.

And if you messed up last night, everyone was probably too drunk to notice, much less take offence.

The fact is that Spanish-speakers take that little twiddly line on top of the ‘ñ’ very seriously, given that it forms part of the name of the nation that gifted the Spanish language to the wider world. And by ‘gifted’ I obviously mean ‘rammed down their throats at the business end of a conquistador’s musket, with a nasty dose of smallpox, typhus and Catholicism thrown in for good measure’.

And it does matter — especially at this time of the year.

So for those still ambling up the foothills of the language and aiming to break the ice with Spanish-speaking neighbours and acquaintances, just make sure your tongue, palate and keyboard fingers wrap themselves around that ‘ñ’.

Be advised that if you drop the tilde and come out with ¡Feliz Ano! instead, you are wishing them a Happy Anus.

Now, given the abuse your entire alimentary canal endures over the festive period — which still ain’t over until the Three Kings have delivered their myrrh (spelling?) on January 6th round these parts— it’s maybe no bad idea to try to keep your anus happy in a more abstemious January.

But such medical and dietary advice is probably best confined to your more intimate family circle, rather than yelled across the street to your neighbour Julio, or Juanita in the local bodega.

This orthographical alert is valid through the summer as well — and it cuts both ways.

Add an unwanted tilde when ordering a cono in your local heladería, and that’s not an ice cream cone you’re asking for, but an entirely different C-word altogether. Though fortunately it’s nowhere near as high on the Richter scale of offence in most Spanish-speaking cultures.

So if you’re planning on learning Spanish in 2024, make a New Year’s resolution to find your tilde with both hands.

Butt have a happy new anus anyway!