On 21 Mar 2005 15:00:20 -0800, "krusty kritter" >
wrote:

>
>David Wright wrote:
>> "krusty kritter" > wrote:
>
>> >What are "charras"? I tried to look it up in my
>> > Spanish dictionary and I found "charrada", which means,
>> > "a coarse thing, in bad taste, bad breeding"...
>>
>> Sounds to me like the feminine of "charro," so I envision
>> an elegant, slender, Dona on horseback, dressed in black,
>> wearing a flat-brimmed hat and confidently holding her horse
>> in check while looking defiantly into the eye of the viewer.
>> Whew!
>> I must excuse myself now. ;-)
>
>I can't fault you in the least for imagining a romantic interlude with
>a dark-eyed Spanish lady. It's certainly an appealing image...
>
>It's also a stereotypical image and a bit bigoted, as I will explain...
>
>My Spanish dictionary says that a "charro"
>is a "coarse individual", "charra" is the feminine of "charro"
>and that as an adjective it means "coarse", or "gaudy"...
>
Here's another way of looking at these words ...

http://tinyurl.com/5coyt

David