Or maybe “Boss Chicken.” Or maybe “Fucking Chicken.” Look, there are a lot of ways you can translate what this place’s name was going to be.
So there’s a new chicken restaurant set to open in Arlington, Virginia. The name the place had chosen, despite no one in ownership apparently speaking Spanish (more on this below), was “Chingon Pollo.” For those who don’t speak Spanish and/or who haven’t worked in restaurants and listened to back of house employees swear at servers and customers, “chingar” is the Spanish version of the verb “to fuck.” So yeah. Not an ideal name.
The thing is, there are a lot of ways to translate “Chingon Pollo.” The most innocent of these is “damn good chicken,” but other possibilities include “a fuckload of chicken,” “hardcore badass chicken,” and “big ole fucker chicken.” Just about the only translation it can’t be (and believe me, I checked every possibility because I desperately hoped this was on the table) is “chicken fucker.”* According to Jezebel’s own Natasha Vargas-Cooper (and her mom), it literally translates as “Top Fucker Chicken” (which is why I went with that) but the connotation in common parlance is more like “Boss Chicken,” and according to Julianne Escobedo Shepherd (and her mom**) it literally means “Fucking Chicken” but the connotation could be more like “Cool Chicken.” Natasha also pointed out that a pizza place in Dallas, Texas went through a similar issue last year when they decided to call one of their pizzas “La Chingona” — and even there, everyone had a different take on what the name meant. So, basically, no one can agree on the specific connotation of the word in context, although everyone agrees on the root verb’s meaning.
Here’s where the story gets even more bizarre: the restaurant is apparently owned by a Pakistani family who had no idea the term might mean something offensive. In the wake of a local backlash about the name, they’ve decided to change the name, and have submitted something less offensive, but also way less fun: Charcoal Chicken.
Whatever the original name meant, it’s just a lot of fucking chicken, OK? It’s important that you know this is some serious fucking chicken right here. You don’t fuck with this fucking chicken, because this chicken will fuck you up.
* Please join me in imagining the local TV spots for this theoretical restaurant, though. They’d have to involve a really shouty fat dude in a searsucker suit who somehow has no idea what he’s saying. “COME ON DOWN TO [CHICKEN FUCKER], YOU WON’T BELIEVE OUR PRICES! HERE AT [CHICKEN FUCKER], WE HAVE THE BEST GOSHDARN CHICKEN AROUND! ONCE AGAIN, THE NAME OF THE PLACE IS [CHICKEN FUCKER]!”
** Seriously, BOTH of them offered to call their mom to double-check with no prompting from me. I love my job.
Image via Jacek Chabraszewski/Shutterstock.