Day-RAY-cho. The opposite, more or less, of a tornado.
Tornado = twisted wind, more or less.
Derecho = straight wind, which can cause a lot of damage, but not perhaps as much as a tornado. It's in the forecast for my region tonight, without an explanation. I guess we're supposed to know this one already. Do you?
Derecho
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- Great Grand Panjandrum
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- Great Grand Panjandrum
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Perry:
Shouldn't it be "el mano derecho"? Actually, the aspects of this Spanish expression have got me dumbfounded. The following may un-confuse you, but it still leaves me shaking my head in confusion.
http://spanish.about.com/od/spanishvoca ... erecho.htm
In Tex-Mex, "to the right " is simply "el recho".
There is certainly room in Spanish for Derecho to mean directly, or in a straight line. I assume we borrowed this for Derecho winds.
Early in my life I never heard the word tornado. We always said cyclone for anything as small as a dust devil to the concrete highway eating mega-tornado to hurricanes.
We have experienced a lot of derechos in the USA this year. I have experienced them many times. When a boiling wall of dust approaches the lone horseman on the prairie, he had better seek cover. I have been out and unprotected in seventy mph derechos with dust so black I couldn't "see my hand in front of my face." "Nature, like us, is sometimes caught without her diadem." Emily Dickinson.
Shouldn't it be "el mano derecho"? Actually, the aspects of this Spanish expression have got me dumbfounded. The following may un-confuse you, but it still leaves me shaking my head in confusion.
http://spanish.about.com/od/spanishvoca ... erecho.htm
In Tex-Mex, "to the right " is simply "el recho".
There is certainly room in Spanish for Derecho to mean directly, or in a straight line. I assume we borrowed this for Derecho winds.
Early in my life I never heard the word tornado. We always said cyclone for anything as small as a dust devil to the concrete highway eating mega-tornado to hurricanes.
We have experienced a lot of derechos in the USA this year. I have experienced them many times. When a boiling wall of dust approaches the lone horseman on the prairie, he had better seek cover. I have been out and unprotected in seventy mph derechos with dust so black I couldn't "see my hand in front of my face." "Nature, like us, is sometimes caught without her diadem." Emily Dickinson.
It is dark at night, but the Sun will come up and then we can see.
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- Great Grand Panjandrum
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- Joined: Wed Jan 03, 2007 12:41 pm
- Location: RUSTON, LA
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I was taught that mano was the only Spanish noun ending in o that was feminine, thus la mano. Also explains my confusion about derecho, since Spanish adjectives agree in gender with their nouns. So on the right hand,would translate a la mano derecha. Still, I wonder, because usually Spanish adjectives are available in either gender.
I also had trouble with cyclone. I remember Dorothy's Kansas house was hit by a cyclone, and I puzzled why it wasn't a tornado. Later I found that to weather people a cyclone is a clockwise weather pattern, often covering many states. Thus anticyclones would be the similar pattern in reverse direction, i.e. anticlockwise.
I also had trouble with cyclone. I remember Dorothy's Kansas house was hit by a cyclone, and I puzzled why it wasn't a tornado. Later I found that to weather people a cyclone is a clockwise weather pattern, often covering many states. Thus anticyclones would be the similar pattern in reverse direction, i.e. anticlockwise.
pl
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