I strongly agree with you! Espe3, my pet peeve in my high school classes is when the students "make up words" adding an "o". They think it is SOOOOOO funny and I absolutely hate it. I was so discouraged by the overwhelming amount of students that do it with such ease ( and no hesitation!!) that I mentioned it on Parent Night in September. I mentioned that the students tended to frequently "make up words" and the parents started laughing so I IMMEDIATELY told them that it WAS NOT funny. I needed their support and they need to buy their kids GOOD dictionaries to use as they do their homework. I really hate the Spanglish that is taking over here in NY at least. Down the block from my house there is a sign that says "rentamos apartamentos" it drives me crazy each time I see it. Anyway, "dipear" is Ridiculous. Basta.

I just noticed..."dipear" looks an awful lot like "dip-ear." How silly is that?

Espe3 writes: I agree! I have encountered this with Hispanics (mostly young people) who are functional illiterates in English but who offer as a defense: 'we speak Spanish.' They are also unable to communicate intelligently in Spanish without the 'crutch' of Spinglés.
I disagree with your assumption! I consider myself bilingual and I have never used 'Spanish-something.' If you find castellano words in my English language 'posts,' they will be italicized.
I was unaware of any effort to standardize what you call 'Spanglish.' Who are the "they" to whom you refer in your 'trying to standardize' comment?
BTW
It's pretty much the same on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border. In the store windows in Ciudad Juarez, Monterrey and Guadalajara, Jalisco most technical terms tend to be the same in (Mexican) Spanish as in English. And as I typed Guadalajara I recalled that its roots are in Arabic: In Arabic it means 'stony brook' or something like that. Could what we are seeing be a language evolving?

About 'dipear', it looks that's nothing new, I have been doing it all my life with the bread in the fried egg for example, other times in the central dish, although my mother didn't liked me to do that so much.

Miguelito,
Where are you from? Dipping isn't new. Although the word, at least to those of us from Spain is new. What you describe to us is called mojando, or if its a thinner sauce, haciendo sopas.

Eddie. I make no assumptions. Also, the arabic influence that you're talking about, again, different, and very natural as Spain was invaded by the moors for MANY years and left their mark everywhere, and not in a bad way. Its also like Spanish leaving behind words and names in America, as we were there before the English. Just like Native American names that have been left behind (not enough I say!), but except for the real words, again I'll refer to computer talk, Hardware, Software... to INVENT a word, is different. It doesn't contribute anything positive, just accepting poor speech and vocabulary, and encouraging more of it.

Great discussion (I've been lurking the whole thread.)

Although I'm as willing to believe that marketing campaigns are the biggest "dumbing-down" factor in modern society (for the lowest of low, see almost ALL American campaign ads!), maybe this one is just an attempt at humor...

For example, the grocery store Kroger used to have an ad campaign in which the made-up English word "krogering" was used. The little jingle at the end of every ad was "Let's go kro-ger-ing! Let'd go kro-ger-ing!" etc.

Now this is, although intensely annoying, a bit clever and does show evidence of the higher level thinking required for all word play (puns, etc).

The word did not become part of everyday speech except for the cause of humor and almost always for tongue-in-cheek references to shopping.

Now it's passed (as all fads do) and if anyone said "Let's go krogering!" to me without a LOT of self-deprecating sarcasm, I'd probably kick him in the shins.

I do understand the fear expressed by carmen and espe, though. Hopefully the folks at FritoLay (who are Texans, after all, and therefore must be given the benefit of the doubt! ), were just trying to be clever and not hoping to cause lasting linguistic change.

I've also watched the Doritos TV commercial but I don't think "dipear" is becoming a common verb in Spanish. People will keep on using "mojar" instead of that made up word. Don't give it so much importance. The Spanish language (at least in Spain, we haven't received the Spanglish) is strong and old enough to resist all this invasion of odd "words". The same has happened with lots of invented words in the past, they had its moment of popularity but, in the end, they faded away (anyone remember: fistro pecador, jarr, a guan a peich a gromenauer or, now, aserejé?)

What worries me a lot more is how so many TV presenters, journalists and other "representative" people, who are considered educated, make more and more spelling and grammar mistakes in their native Spanish language, due to the lack of proper education in schools nowadays.

You know what? After all I think that the ad was made by a spanish publicity company, and by a spanish publicist (is that the word?), which is much more annoying.

Blame on us! We don't take care of our own language.

Fernando

Sorry Espe, maybe I understood something wrong. I'm from Madrid, and I 'mojo' and 'sopo' since I began to eat bread. This kind of food like doritos doesn't hang me so much.
I think 'pecador' has kept still today, 'fistro' not so much. Oooh, I enjoyed Chiquito so much, I miss him.
There are also some words that come from comercial brands like 'clinex', 'corn flakes', .. as they're new products they have easier to stay in the language.