Teibol...Teibolera

In the past few months, I have been hearing words relating to table dance all over Mexican television programs, particularly in the novelas (soap operas) and talk shows; of these words, the most prominents being teibol and teibolera, whose etymologies are directly linked to English "table". Teibol is simply a Hispanicization of "table", it being pronounced ['tejβɔl], and it is short for "table dance", which is too often used in writing and in speech. Both teibol and "table dance" refer somewhat to the same thing that they would in English; that is, a place, generally for gentleman, where women with exuberant physical attributes dance in minute clothing for the patrons, sometimes at the table where these are sitting. This is definitely the meaning that it entered Mexico with, and it still applies, though it has acquired a much broader use. Its main use, nonetheless, is a pejorative one designating a place where, to put it lightly, women dance nude and perform sex acts. It is common now to hear men in Mexico say that a certain night they went to a teibol, meaning that they were at what in the US would be a strip joint. When women get into arguments among themselves, one might accuse the other of working at a teibol, which could act as a euphemism for a four letter word in Spanish (hint: it starts with a P). From this last one, then, comes into play the neologism teibolera, a substantive coming from teibol (»table) + the suffix -era which indicates a profession, in this case then, one relating to "table". It is often the case, then, that a woman is called a teibolera when she's being talked about in a negative way, as in No es más que una teibolera (She is nothing but a teibolera), implying just that: that she dances on tables in a club, but also that she does much more than just dance, even if she has never in her life put a foot in one of those establishments.
I have witnessed this word, and its derivatives, being used in everything from "Teibolpiñata" (a piñata in the shape of a table-dancer), a Barbie Teibolera, and even a beauty pagent named Señorita Table 2004. After all, the young ladies who are truly involved in this occupation are indeed called teiboleras. There is even an internationally-known hit song, by a group from Veracruz, Mexico, which deals with the act of table-dancing called "La Mesa Que Más Aplauda" ("The Table That Claps The Most"), saying that the table-dancer will be sent to the table clapping the most. And even though teibol and teibolera are very popular in Mexico right now, these are not known to Spanish-speakers in the US; not even the word "table" to designate the same¹.


VIP
While we’re on the subject of anglicisms in use in Mexico, there is one more which has caught my attention because of its frequent use in the Mexican media: VIP. Mostly everyone who speaks English or lives in the US knows what VIP stands for: Very Important Person. In Mexico, it has been extensively used to point out that something is more important than the ordinary; whether that is so could be left up for debate. Used for titles and business promotions, its most famous instance has been with the Big Brother enterprise, in a reality show in Mexico called Big Brother VIP. In Spain and Argentina, the show's name was translated and thus is named Gran Hermano; in Mexico, as we can see, the English name was kept. VIP was added to mean that there were celebrities involved in the show, rather than unknown people. Big Brother VIP has been quite a success, having just finished its fourth season. Along with it, though, there have been other shows that have utilized VIP such as La Escuelita VIP and Protagonistas de la Fama VIP, this last one actually made in the US. In English, when we say VIP, we do so letter by letter, V-I-P, but in Mexico and in Spanish in general, it is treated more like a true acronym and is so pronounced [bip].


1. What one would hear in the US instead of teibolera would be "stripper" or its Hispanicized variant estriper. return