Saturday, March 18, 2006

What does "mas fina" mean?

[language]

That seems to be the question that brings many visitors to this quiet little blog. I went with the title tequila mas fina because I love tequila. Not that rotgut Jose Curevo that most people drink during high school or college while on spring break in [insert name of tropical beach city here.] I did an installation once in Tijuana (tee-wahna, not tee-uh-wahna), which gave me the opportunity to bring back a litre (or six) of good tequilas to sample and share with friends. At one point I had more than a dozen premium tequilas on my counter at one time. Subsequently, I, and my friends, learned the difference between mass produced barely legal tequila and good tequila. So, what does that have to do with "mas fina?"

While learning the language, I was trying to figure out how to say "premium" from the local Mexicans assisting on the project. The best I could wrap my head around was mas fina. The literal translation would be more fine, finer or finest, but mas fina really translates out to best. Thus, tequila mas fina would translate as "premium tequila" or "best tequila". The only problem was, the locals were happy to let me mangle their language. The word tequila is masculine, which means the proper translation would be "tequila mas fino," not "tequila mas fina." Yo soy un machetero de la lengua. (I still butcher the language) ;-)


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