A Few Curiosities of Spanish

Part I: “unos” and “herramientas”

Unos

This is a fun word. It isn’t one of those “English doesn’t have it,” things. It’s just a bit unique and clever.

In English, “unos/unas” translates to something like “some, a couple, a few,” or “around, about, or so.” For example, you might say, “See you in a few weeks,” or, “I need a couple apples,” or “I live about five miles from work.”

• “Let’s meet up in a few weeks.”
  “Nos vemos en unas semanas”
• “You need a couple papers.”
  “Hace falta unos documentos.”

Great, so what’s so interesting? What’s so interesting is that “unos” is the plural of “uno”.

That’s right — the word, “one”, in Spanish, can be plural.

So when you have a few, i.e. more than one, logically you’re going make it plural! The extra-fun part is that you can put “unas” in front of a number. For example:

• “She will return in about five months.”
  “Va a volver en unos cinco meses.”
• “I knew like two people there.”
  “Conocía a unas dos personas allí.”

That’s right… I knew “ones two people” at the party. Pretty wild that it works that way, but somehow it makes sense in a really fun way.

Herramientos

Nothing too odd here: The word means “tool”, and its etymology comes from the Latin, “ferramentum”, which means a tool or object made with iron. We get such words as:

• “ferrous”, relating to iron.
• “ferrier”, someone who works with iron horseshoes.
• “ferroequinologist”, train enthusiast.
• “Fe”, the chemical symbol for iron.

Yes, I had to work one of my favorite etymologies into this. If you’re wondering what ferroequinologist has to do with trains, remember the old nickname for trains — iron horses.

Anyway, since the early times of Microsoft Word, we’ve had an option in our writing software called, “tools.” Well, the Spanish word for “tools” is “herramientos”, so logically they call this tab by the same name.

But fan of etymology that I am, I just can’t get past the fact that alongside tabs named, “format, table, insert, see, help,” there’s one called, “objects wrought by iron,” and I love that.