The Lone Ranger has nothing on me.
For those who aren’t familiar with the Lone Ranger, he and his Indian sidekick, Tonto, were part of an early television series aptly called the Lone Ranger.
Who knew that this trivial TV show would spawn some serious academic study? There are scholars that accuse the Lone Ranger, and the creators and writers of the series, of being biased and politically incorrect towards Tonto. Most of those allegations are because of Tonto’s name. In Spanish it means dumb or stupid.
The defenders of truth and the Lone Ranger say that Tonto had the last laugh and line because he called the Lone Ranger "Kemosabe". Those same scholars say that Kemosabe is a loose Spanish translation of qui no sabe. That means he who knows nothing, or, in other words, clueless.
All scholars on both sides of the Lone Ranger debate agree that the Lone Ranger’s pants were too tight for his time.
Others believe that Kemosabe is from the Yavapai Indian dialect of Arizona and is a derivative of the word “Kimmsaba” which means “One who is white”.
That sounds more plausible to me based on my own personal experience.
Years ago, I worked at a feedlot with a Navajo Indian named John Shepherd. He was a pleasant and charming guy from Tuba City, AZ. We struck up a friendship and he said he would teach me to speak a little Navajo.
He taught me to say Bilaganna do-yah-shon-da. I thought he was teaching me to say, “Good morning, how are you?” It turns out John wasn’t as “Tonto” as I had originally thought.
Bilaganna do-yah-shon-da, when translated, means “No good white man".
John Shepherd is no longer around, so here is my Navajo translation for one least one Winter Olympics Sport.
"Bilaganna blades-yah-glory-da" means "Dumb white men in pants too tight".
"Bilaganna Bob-da-Costas-yah" means, "Dumb white man on TV who talks too much about dumb white men in pants too tight".
"Bilaganna couch-yah-potato-da" means "Dumber white man yet who listen to Bob-yah-Costas and watch men in pants too tight".
And finally, "Bilaganna hb-yah-arnett-da" means "Dumbest of all white man writing blog about other dumb white men talking and watching other white men wearing pants too tight".
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