Buccaneer/Buckaroo

Have you ever seen a buckaroo?

Is this a buckaroo?

For some reason I always think of a buckaroo as a kid playing around. 

What if the buckaroo is a kid riding on a real horse?

Can a buckaroo have a hat?

What if the buckaroo is riding on Grandpa's shoulders?

Or what about riding a panda? Does that make Anna a Chinese buckaroo?

This is a buckaroo.... or at least this is the origin of the word...

Buckaroo comes from the Spanish word vaquero. Vaquero basically means "cowman". (Yes I know that Jim Craig is a horseman. Briana just loves Jim Craig) Vaca is cow. The 'v' in Spanish sounds exactly like the 'b' in Spanish. So the modern pronunciation of Vaquero sounds like "bah-CARE-oh". It is relatively easy to see that with a change in emphasis and vowel sounds the word morphed to "buh-ka-ROO"

What about a buccaneer? What is that? Where does the word come from?

Well, for John, a buccaneer probably looks something like this...

For Luke it is something like this...

We all know that a real buccaneer is an invisible track star...



And I myself have an illustrious career as "Cap'n Sweetbeard - terror of the Krispy Kreme".

The origin of buccaneer comes from "boucan" or "buccan" which is an indigenous word from the Caribbean meaning smoked meat. It also refers to the smoking rack. The French and Spanish took that word and applied it to the pirates in the area because they would mostly survive off of the meat they would cook on fires on whichever island they were on. Like the picture below.

A related form of the word appears in our modern vocabulary. It is featured on sauce labels, chip bags, and family reunion itineraries. It is....Barbecue! The Spanish version of the word, derived from the original "boucan" is "barbacoa". So, the fun word that means so much deliciousness in our lives comes from the original inhabitants of the Caribbean.

Barbecue, as you can see, brings so much happiness to the lives of all who partake...