mayugues/malluges
Long ago when I was spending the summer with a Mexican family in Guadalajara, the female cousins of the boy in that family were fond of saying "¡Si no compras, no mayugues! (or perhaps it should be written "mallugues"). This was said (laughingly) to boys "hitting on" them. By way of explanation, they said that it was (or was like) what might be said in a store, so I took it to be roughly equivalent to "Don't handle the merchandise!", which I've heard girls say in the USA with similar intent. My question is: what's the underlying verb? Over the years, I've tried to find it in various dictionaries without success. (I refer, of course, to the 2nd verb. I have absolutely no problem with "comprar".)
9 Answers
Mallugar seems to be a variant of magullar. Searching for it at the RAE site directs you to magullar.
P.P.S. I just tried a raw search in Google and there it was! Among the hist was the RAE so I just misled Lazarus by my dumb misspelling.
I should, perhaps, have tried to reconstruct more of her explanation in my original post. My recollection is that she did, indeed, make reference to a fruit/vegetable store. So why have I never been able to look it up? I just went back and tried this site's dictionary and apparently even Lazarus couldn't find it (and he's said he has every dictionary since the middle of the 17th century!)
P.S. I see, now , that I omitted the 2nd 'u' in the key-words box. I know better, I just mis-typed it.
Paralee Whitmire said:
Are you sure it isn't Magullar instead of Mallugar?
Sorry Paralee, Magullar is also correct, to bruise, but look at the following. The poster did say Mexico.
<http://www.wordreference.com/es/en/translation.asp'spen=mallugar>
I can only think of "manosees" (touch, handle) in this context.
"Magullar" comes from Latin "maculare" (mark with stains), mixed with "bollo" (bump), and it makes no sense here, because it means "to bruise".
Paralee Whitmire said:
Are you sure it isn't Magullar instead of Mallugar?
No it is definitely mallugar. And the negative imperative should be "no mallugues" don't bruise. In English we would say "if you are not buying, don't touch"
Are you sure it isn't Magullar instead of Mallugar?
Mallugar is the verb and it means to bruise
http://www.wordmagicsoft.com/dictionary/es-en/mallugarse.php
<http://conjes.cactus2000.de/showverb.en.php'verb=mallugarse>
It seems to me to be more like what a fruit or vegetable seller would say:
If you're not buying it, don't bruise it.
