PELAGATOS AND OTHER SPANISH PUT-DOWNS

 

Because Spaniards at large can appear sometimes so full of themselves, so uppity, on their high horse, I tend to denigrate and disparage myself when I describe my personality. I am in all truthfulness a real run-of-the-mill, below-the-salt, scholar-in-the-making person, nothing more. The word I use, tongue in cheek, is "pelagatos". 

In less fortunate times, people were obliged to hunt stray cats for food but first, they had to skin them, "pelarlos"; this practice gives us the etymology of "pelagatos": a person who skins cats, a "cat skinner", or more broadly, a person of little significance. The DRAE defines it as: "persona insignificante o mediocre, sin posición social o económica" which fits me to a T. Synonyms like pelafustán (layabout, good-for-nothing), pelagallos (nobody), paria (pariah), and mindundi (nobody) enrich its meaning. Meanwhile, Collins Bilingual Dictionary translates pelagatos as 'nobody,' a reduction that strips the word of its essence and flavor. 

Mario Vargas Llosa, Nobel Prize winner, in his La tía Julia y el escribidor says: "¿Quieres decirme qué pelagatos de Miraflores invita a una chica a los toros?" And Carlos Ruiz Zafón in his La sombra del viento, explains that "... pese a que debíamos tener pinta de pelagatos, el encargado nos dejó manosear la pluma." 

I now find pelagatos to be a colorful and harmless term—one that embraces humility with a touch of self-aware irony. So, do not hesitate to call yourself a pelagatos in Spanish—unless you harbor delusions of grandeur.