Frequently heard during matches, always a fun chant, appropriate for listening on your way home from work while the people on the bus/train/street look at you wondering why the smirk, why the glow, why the smug satisfaction on your face?
No need to answer them, but if you were to answer them, there’s only one answer: It’s because you’re a sevillista.
Part II:
I’m fluent in Spanish, have been speaking it for 20+ years. And in spite of that, it took me a solid 30 minutes today to figure out what the word “salero” in this chant means, as it’s always pestered me when I hear that chant. Obviously it means saltshaker, but clearly that’s not what the song refers to. So I had to recur to la RAE to finally solve my confusion:
4. m. coloq. Gracia, donaire. Tener mucho salero.
And since even that definition taught me another word I don’t think I’ve ever heard, here’s the defintion of donaire: Gracia, discreción y viveza en la forma de hablar y moverse
Anyhow, hasta aqui the random-as-hell-words-of-the-day Spanish lesson. De nada.
Realized that I didn’t add any English annotations on those definitions, oops.
So the long and the short of it, it means “grace” or something to that effect, but the word gracia also has a ton of nuance in what it can imply, so “grace” is probably not a terribly helpful translation either.
PS - I’m not a translator, so stop judging me for how unhelpful that is if you don’t speak Spanish. Hire a different teacher if you’re upset about it.
Love this Ryan. People ask how my Spanish is when they find out we live in Spain. I tell them I get by. For the most part I can get my point across and people understand me…I can have decent conversations, but some words and phrases like this I just miss. Everyday is a learning experience. Songs are the hardest to understand because of the liberty artists take with words. The literal meaning does not always equate to the actual meaning.
Hopefully your Spanish is good enough that when Google says that SevillaFC is the “team of the art and the saltshaker”, you ask yourself…“hmmm…that doesn’t seem right…?”
