Translations 436, Spanish Insights. Idioms "cortar el bacalao, te conozco bacalao, ser un bacalao." "codfish, scrooge, cunt." Etymology, origins.

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Translations 436, Spanish Insights, Idioms: “cortar el bacalao, te conozco bacalao, ser un bacalao”? plus, “codfish, scrooge, cunt.” Etymology of “bacalao” and the origins of the idioms “cortar el bacalao” and “te conozco, bacalao.” Etymology of "bacalao" and origin of the idioms "te conozco, bacalao" and "cortar el bacalao."

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bacalao

1) [fish] cod, codfish

2) [idiom] cortar el bacalao [cut the codfish] be the boss, have the final say, run the show

3) [idiom] te conozco, bacalao [I know you, codfish] I can see straight through you, you don’t fool me

4) [idiom] ser un bacalao [be a codfish] be as thin as a rake

5) [Southern Cone] miser, scrooge

6) [Spain]? cunt

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Etymology of “bacalao”

Apparently the word “?bacalao,” which we share with Catalan “bacallá,” Portuguese “bacalhau,” and Italian “baccalá, baccalaru,” comes from Dutch “bakeljaw”a transpositional variant of Dutch “kabeljaw” from which the French word for the fish “cabillaud” is derived. Before the romance languages took this loanword, the words came from Provencal giving us “merlus morue” in French and “merluzzo” in Italian.

Origin of “Te conozco, bacalao”

On October 25, 2016, an author named “Charlie” a member of Spanish language, published an answer in Spanish.stockexchange.com to the reason the fish “bacalao” is used in the expression “Te conozco, bacalao” which means, as you can see above, that I see right through you or you don’t fool me.

Charlie was able to find in the newspaper library of the newspaper ABC this expression used on June 17, 2023. In this article, it disclosed that the police discovered the illegal trade of selling codfish in high-class neighborhoods as if it were a dish fit for kings instead of its traditional usage as a dish fit for paupers. This was done through the use of spices and dressings. The next edition in which reference is made to this was on December 2, 1960, in an article entitled, “Te conozco, bacalao” [I know you codfish], which of course really means, “I can see through you” or “You don’t fool me.”

Since the flavor of codfish is so strong, it needed heavy doses of dressings and spices to disguise its taste so it could pass itself off as refined.

Origin of “cortar el bacalao”

On August 28, 2017, Mark published an article in the Don Quijote blog on the idiom “cortar el bacalao” which literally means to cut the codfish.

This expression is used to refer to the boss, the one that makes the most important decisions. But why codfish?

We have to look at this historically. This idiom goes way back to the sixteenth century when Spain was in the midst of conquering the New World and had dozens of colonies in what are now many countries in Latin America. But since meat was scarce during this period of time, they used codfish, one of the few plentiful fish available. So that the fish would not rot during the trip over to the Americas, they would preserve them with salt until it was time to eat them and then they would wash off the salt.

The person that cut the codfish in order to eat it, and also in order to give it to those enslaved by the Spaniards to help in the conquest, would determine how much codfish each person would get. Thus, the express of to cut the codfish or “cortar el bacalao” came to refer to the one in charge, the boss, the one that makes the importranta decisions.

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Sources

https://etimologias.dechile.net/?bacalao

https://www.donquijote.org/es/blog/cortar-el-bacalao/

Collins Spanish Unabridged Dictionary

Larousse Spanish Unabridged Dictionary

Oxford Spanish Dictionary