What flamenco is NOTIt's not a pink bird But let's not be too harsh on the general public because a
lot of the blame for these strange ideas has to go to
inferior definitions like this;
"The word flamenco is derived
from association with flamingos. The movements made during
the dance are likened to those made by the elegant
bird."
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You would think this goes without saying,
but it's amazing how many people say flamingo when they want to describe
Spanish music or dance. In the minds of these
people there must be
some connection between a tropical wading bird and
Andalucian gypsy music, but one can only speculate as to
what that connection could possibly be. Perhaps if I can
convince my therapist to increase my medication, I will
begin to understand what this flamingo business is all about.
Duh! Talk about clueless. Even the Encarta
dictionary spreads this sort of silliness. Through a
bizarre twist of logic, the old Dutch word "Vlaming" (with
a presumed Latin root) is touted as being theoretically
responsible for two completely different words,
flamingo and flamenco. Consequently, the phonetic
similarity of the two words lingers on as a linguistic
curse we cannot escape from.
In the real world, flamingo still means a pink tropical bird
and can never mean anything else. To my dismay, I have
discovered there is no point in trying to educate someone
to say flamenco instead of
flamingo. My best advice is
to just take a deep breath and walk the other way because
you're in the wrong neighborhood. A flamingo is very pretty, I'll grant you
that, but it doesn't have a clue about dancing in compás.
I've often wondered what it tastes like.
Sam learned flamingo
guitar at the knee of his Cuban grandfather
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