Nea Tip Of The Week: ‘No La Chimba’ Analyzed

Wherein we meta-analyze three extremely common phrases found here in not only Jardín but all of Antioquia.

‘Noooo….la chimba…parce’,  ‘Ah que chimba parce’, ‘Uff la chimba parce!’

 

‘Noooo….la chimba…parce’

We’ve all heard it.  But we’ve also heard a similar:

‘Ah que chimba parce

And lest we forget the often left out, but ever useful,

‘Uff la chimba parce!’

How do we interpret these?  Are they positive, neutral, or negative in nature?  Just what level of emotion are we talking about here and how can we tell?

Chimba == Vagina+

Alright, now with that out of the way.  Culturally, it seems like it could be another discussion entirely.  However, linguistically it seems so far removed from its actual meaning and has dialectally become much more intertwined with similar-meaning words like chévere and bacano.  Aka ´cool.´

Afirmativo and Negativo

So here we have “No la chimba” as compared to “Ayy que chimba” and “Uff la chimba”.  How can we compare and contrast these as a completely ridiculous but verdadero look at paisa/”Nea” colombiano.

Negativo – No la chimba

No, especially a drawn out nooooo, definitely makes the modifier ‘chimba’, regardless of its complementary of ‘la’ o ‘que’, into a negative.  If someone is repeatedly sounding off with “Nooo la chimbaa….parce…uff que gonorrea” they are definitely in a ‘half-glass full’ mode.

Afirmativos – Ayy que chimba / Uff la chimba

Author’s note: (Of course flipping them to Ayy la chimba and/or Uff que chimba violates no rules and is completely allowed in Nea-speak.)

Here we see how chimba expresses a positive.  It is much more often this way.  In fact, it wasn´t until today that I finally started picking up on a long drawn out Nooo followed with a ´la chimba´ in a negative context.

The ‘Uffff’ Factor

Like ‘chimba’ as a modifier, uff can play up or play down equally well.  The more drawn out, the more it modifies.

There is a clear difference between and ‘uff’ and an ‘UFFFFFFffffff’ (totally-IPA-approved).

´De Unnnnna, Obvioooo, Claaaaarroo´ Trio y et al.

Of course, we must not forget the just as important, and much more acceptable among non-Nea company, the ´De Unnnnna, Obvioooo, Claaaaarroo´ trio.

All three share the same elongation-potential as ´uffff´ and are more widely socially-acceptable modifiers than ´chimba´  The ´De Unnnnna, Obvioooo, Claaaaarroo´ trio are so widespread you better get used to hearing them if you ever have any plans of visiting Colombia.

This is where Spanish becomes a little more English-friendly.  What with vowels as syllables being elongated, thus shifting from a syllable-timed language to a stress-timed language like English (although I suppose that itself as a categorization isn´t even accepted universally).

The bigger, the better.  So choose wisely.  Chimba is short and sweet.  But uff can drag on, putting in serious jeopardy your Nea cred.  Tread wisely.   Tread wisely.