Word: handier
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Turns out the popular Palm III handheld computer is even handier than people realized. Last week maker 3Com confirmed rumors that a free program that lets the unit double as a remote control for TVs can also be used by thieves to unlock car doors equipped with infrared remote locking systems. But only a few cars (including some Mercedes-Benz) use such a system, and because a thief must first copy the code from the remote sold with the car, 3Com declared such break-ins "nearly impossible...
...librarian supplies directions: take that elevator there, cross the lobby, take another elevator to A-level, and, bingo, you're there. But the second elevator has a sign on it: OUT OF SERVICE. PLEASE USE ELEVATOR AT OTHER END OF BUILDING. The stairs are handier, but they lack directional signs and so lead the uninitiated to an underground garage. Back up one flight, through a vast, empty room, into another room containing only a security desk (unattended), just in time to see the ostensibly broken elevator arrive (let's call it Kira's law: cosmic jokers all come out when...
Many of the English words transplanted in this way are simply handier than their Spanish counterparts. No matter how distasteful the subject, for example, it is still easier to say "income tax" than impuesto sobre la renta. At the same time, many Spanish-speaking immigrants have adopted such terms as VCR, microwave and dishwasher for what they view as largely American phenomena. Still other English words convey a cultural context that is not implicit in the Spanish. A friend who invites you to lonche most likely has in mind the brisk American custom of "doing lunch" rather than the languorous...
Some English words are transferred without alteration into Spanglish because they are handier than their Spanish equivalents. Any Spanglish-speaking accountant knows, for instance, that it is easier to say "nineteen forty- five" than "mil novecientos cuarenta y cinco." Says Judith Schomber, an associate professor of Spanish at Georgia Southern College, who hears Spanglish in the conversations of her students: "They plug in the English words unconsciously. It is done so naturally as to be almost undetectable...
...citizen should have the right to protect himself if the state is unable to do so. But few would argue that anyone who enters a subway or walks lonely streets at night should pack a pistol and be ready for a shoot-out. By choice of vocation, thugs are handier with guns than are Wall Street brokers or Macy's salesclerks. Moreover, bystanders can get caught in the cross fire...