Just a ‘slip’ of the tongue – petticoat tales!

My Ferring class are truly keeping me on the ball. It goes like this….

One week, we cover body parts.

(In all of my time translating in Spanish hospitals, I never consciously came across nostril. Even when I had a broken nose myself. Now I know why: la ventana de la nariz – literally ‘the window to the nose’. I probably just understood it without thinking about it. It’s kind of logical. Kind of.)

The following week, we clothe said body parts… (not the nostrils, funnily enough!)

Petticoats. One of my class had an illustrated children’s dictionary (Yes cheating, but that’s ok. As long as they look it up themselves and use it, for most exercises I’m cool with this.)

Their translation for petticoat was ‘combinación’. It translates as ‘slip’. I’d heard it used by some friendly gitanas near to my old Spanish home, but it wasn’t the first word to come to mind.

The other word that came up was ‘enaguas’. Now I’m pretty sure this was the word used to describe the petticoats of a fat rich white woman being given a piggyback over some water by a poor underfed indigenous man in the novel ‘Gentes y Gentecillas’ by the novelist Carlos Luis Fallas. It’s the vocabulary that Google, and even an AI check, returned.

But it still wasn’t chiming with me.

In the recesses of my mind was another word, but it just wasn’t coming to front of mind. (Forgive me – how often do you have conversations about petticoats?) As a Spanish tutor/teacher, this is frustrating.

All kinds of sources seem to indicate one is a full slip, one is a half slip, but frankly, they seem interchangeable.

So I was on a mission. I hate it when I don’t know the answer to something…..

‍(I realise that at this point, half of you are going to stop reading because you don’t care about petticoats. Frankly, neither should I, but I should be doing my accounts so this is a great distraction!)

Enaguas

Theory one

‍Enaguas, it seems, comes from the word naguas, which were crinoline-type hooped skirts.

En -in

Aguas – waters.

In times gone by this was probably the case, so there’s maybe a little truth there?

Theory two

I developed my own theory that that it comes from nalgas (bottom cheeks) – en nalgas (on your bottom) would make some logical sense, and fit with my view of Spanish being very logical and direct language. But it would be remiss of me to invent and answer, so the naguas version stands.

Theories and AI Google results aside, more accurate resources suggest  that the current meaning of enaguas is prenda interior para mujer que consiste en una tela que se ajusta a la cintura y cubre las piernas o parte de ellas. In short a cover up garment.

Combinación

Petticoats also translate as ‘combinación’ - literally combination. Historically we used this term in the UK  for women’s undergarments, apparently. From the 19th century, combinations ‘combined’ pantaloons, corset and ‘drawers’ making a much less bulky all in one. (As someone who regularly wears jumpsuits, I see all kinds of drawbacks to having an undergarment with no ‘outlet’ but I’m sure they got around it somehow!)

Confusing?

Las combinaciones interiores pueden llamarse también enaguas para mujer o visos tradicionales para llevar debajo de faldas y vestidos.

Reading around, I suspect combinación was once used to describe the full slip type petticoat, whilst enaguas was used for an underskirt.

So what’s right?

However, that’s history and the two words seem absolutely interchangeable, Certainly ‘lencerías’ (lingerie shops, are using the terms interchangeably online.

But wait….

The vocabulary I knew, the translation I would have used had I remembered the word immediately, was fondo.

To me it chimes – it has the sound of being underneath, below. But apparently this is only used in Mexico, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic. I have only been to one of those countries, and I swear on my life no talk of petticoats arose whilst I was there. So I’m going to extend Mexico to Central America, as, having lived there for over a year, it seems the most likely place for me to have picked it up.

But just to confuse things, I’m reliably AI-informed that in parts of Central America (such as El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua) the correct word is fustán.

On a mission, at a networking session today I met a (Spanish) man from Madrid. I told him about my conundrum. (Forward of me, I know, discussing underwear with a stranger at 8am in the morning.) He suggested camisón, but that’s more of a nightdress.

Now he’s a native Spanish speaker AND used to teach Spanish, and if he didn’t know….

So hey. I’ve done my best to try and find the answer. The answer seems to be that there is no answer, and I have just wasted several hours of my life on a rarely used, out of fashion word.

Conclusion

I feel I’ve failed you,This one I have no straight answer for!  

My conclusion is this. When and if you ever want to buy a petticoat  (in Spain), go to a lencería and find one. Try out either word (enagua or combinación) with the sales assistant. One should chime.

Or try online, both search terms come up with both slips (a term which also seems to have invaded Spanish) and petticoats, both full and skirt. No need to worry - there’s a picture.

Sure there are other terms that are used for particular petticoats for particular national and regional costumes. I am really not ready to go there. Sorry! This is more than enough time spent on one piece of vocabulary.

Thanks for the challenge, Team Ferring.A warning to teams Littlehampton and Arundel, you have a lot to live up to - but please, no more petticoats!