¡Orillase a la orilla!

In Mexico, these words can be cause for extreme laughter, and by the end of this post you'll know why.  But for now, let's start with orilla.

Here's a picture of la orilla de la playa.

Orilla can be translated as the shore, river bank, or the edge.

La orilla de la playa
The seashore

La orilla del mar
The sea shore

La orilla del rio
The river bank

Me gusta caminar a la orilla del mar
I like to walk along the seashore

Orilla can also apply to more than the water's edge:

La orilla de la cama
The edge of the bed

It can also be used to say that you want to move something to the side.

Pon este florero en una orilla para que pueda pasar la gente

Put this vase to the side so the people can get by

Let's move on to Orillar.  It means to pull over to the side of the road.

Juan orilló el coche
John pulled the car over

There's also orillarse, which also means pull over.  If you need the person driving you around to pull over, this is the verb you need.

Orillate
Pull over

Orillate con cuidado
Pull over carefully

Orillate a la derecha
Pull over to the right

If you happen to be driving a little to fast, You'll also hear this from the police.  They'll tell you to  "orillase" - pull over.  But what makes this post interesting is that in Mexico you may hear:

¡Orillase a la orilla!

If you remember, I told you that this phrase may just cause people to start laughing.  Why?  Because it's redundant and makes the police sound pretty stupid when they say it.

Orillase already means pull over.  So when you say "Orillase a la orilla", what you're actually saying is something like:

Pull over by pulling over to the side.

Say what?

Sounds just as silly in English doesn't it?  But orillase isn't the only phrase famous for that sort of redundancy.  Here's a few more popular ones:


Metete Para Adentro
Put in by putting it inside

Salte Para Afuera
Leave by going outside

Subete Para Arriba
Go up by going up

Bajate Para Abajo
Come down by coming down.

A search for these examples in Google will land you on pages that might be titled "frases de estupidez", with lots of people laughing about them.

If you try hard enough, you can use these at just the right time to get a laugh out of your Spanish speaking friends.

That's it for today, ¡Hasta la próxima!