Salut, salut y forza al canut

I am a Spanish professor after all, so I really owe it to the blogósfera to include some Spanish culture in my blog: perhaps a toast here or a proverb there. There´s nothing like Spanish wisdom to add authenticity to your drinking experience.

In my last post, I ended with a Catalunyan toast that everyone thinks refers to your member. "Health, health, and strength to your member," they interpret it to mean. In actuality, the toast wishes for strength to your wallet. People at one point carried coins in a sort of phallic roll, apparently. In any case, given la Crisis económica, we can always use a little bit of strength for both, so I appreciate the ambiguity and Spanish innuendo.

The full toast is:

"salut i força al canut i que l'any que ve sigui més gros i més pelut"

Health and strength to the wallet, and may it be bigger and hairier next year.

I´ve also heard variations like the one I posted before. In fact, all over Andalusia people, when prompted will say "Salut i força al canut" Basically men´s wallets were made from animal skin, so the bigger and the hairer the better, as more money would fit therein.

Once I dropped the expression in front of my mother-in-law (we get along like gangbusters).

Her response was "Lo que has dicho es una ordinariez." (What you have just said is a vulgarity.)

Luckily I was able to explain that this other meaning comes from the dirty minds of the Spaniards and that originally there was a more economic motivation behind this expression. Although, knowing the Spaniards, I´m sure the double entendre was intentional.

In any case, there will be ribald expressions on the table from time to time, so hopefully no one will be easily offended.