World Cup Final Aardvark vs Chocolate.

Sunday will see the crowning of a new World Cup winner. The South African World Cup has been full of thrills and spills (Green). It has been quite a ride for us here in Asia with many of the later stage games starting at 2.30 AM. While we will be glad to return to some more regular sleeping patterns we are sure to miss the World Cup as soon as it is over. Four years time till we do it all over again in Brazil.

So how can I make a blog post about learning English with the World Cup final? Simple, the two teams in the final have contributed many words to the English language so I will take a look at the words we have taken from Dutch and Spanish and use that information to work out who will win the final. Like Paul the Octopus. Neither the Dutch or the Spanish have won the World Cup so there will be a new name on the Cup.

Dutch

Aardvark - from both Afrikaans and Dutch, literally "earth-pig".
Beleaguer - from belegeren (="besiege, attack with an army")
Booze - from Middle Dutch busen (="to drink in excess")
Forlorn hope - from verloren hoop (literally "lost troop," figuratively "suicide mission,"
Luck - from Middle Dutch luc, shortening of gheluc
Skipper - from Middle Dutch scipper (now schipper, literally "shipper")
Split - from Middle Dutch splitten
Wiggle - from wiggelen (= "to wobble, to wiggle")

Spanish

Adiós - from Spanish "goodbye".
Barbecue - from the Chibcha word barbacoa.
Chocolate - from Spanish chocolate, from Nahuatl xocolatl meaning "hot water."
Desperado - from Spanish desesperado, desperate.
El Niño - from El Niño de la Navidad, literally, "the Christmas child" due to the warming of Pacific waters around Christmas.
Guerrilla - from Spanish "small war".
Loco - from loco, = mad, crazy.
Macho - from macho, brave, the property of being overtly masculine.
Olé - an interjection, an expression of approval or triumph, similar to the Italian bravo="capable", used by spectators of bull fights or football (soccer) matches.
Savvy - from Spanish or Portuguese sabe, "knows".

The task here is to make sentences out of the words to describe the final as you see it playing out.

Good gheluc to both teams.

Adiós