Our linguistic history is closely tied up with the major Romance languages of Europe, especially France, Italy and Spain. Spanish words figure largely in our English vocabulary, due to the historic ties between Spain and Britain over many centuries.

Take the culinary world, for example. We think of tapas and sangria as typical Spanish fare, but there’s also a long list of food with Spanish origins in the names.

Salsa is Spanish for sauce and paella, that delicious rice dish, comes from the Catalan word for saucepan. Tapas means ‘lid’ because they were first served free with a drink, balanced on a dish on top of the glass.

Chocolate, tomato and avocado are all from Spanish but before that from the Nahautl group of languages, dating back to the ancient Aztecs. Potato comes from Quechua, a South American tongue, via Spanish.

Nacho is an abbreviation of the name Ignacio after maitre d’ Ignacio ‘Nacho’ Anaya, the man who in 1943 first threw the ingredients together in a Mexican restaurant and created the popular snack we called nachos. The original nachos consisted of fried corn tortillas covered with melted cheddar cheese and pickled jalapeño peppers.

Other items with Spanish names on the menu at Mexican restaurants are tortilla, a Mexican pancake, and quesadilla, the tortilla with cheese. In Spain, the tortilla is an omelette and comes from the Spanish for ‘little cake’. Enchilada is the tortilla served with chilli.

Abalone, vanilla, tuna, oregano and cilantro all come from Spanish as well.

Sherry was once called ‘vino de Xeres’ meaning ‘wine from Jerez’, the town where sherry was made, near the port of Cadiz in SW Spain. It was shortened to Jerez (pronounced heh-reth in Spanish) but mistakenly thought to be plural so it was made singular to Xere and then sherry. The cocktail pina colada literally means ‘pineapple strained’ – note that colada is related to colander, a strainer. Tequila is named after the Mexican town in which it was first made. Sangria comes from the Spanish sangre ‘blood’ because of its colour.

Then there’s the animal world. Alligator comes from the Spanish el lagarto ‘the lizard’, and cockroach from the Spanish cucaracha ‘beetle’. The wild horse mustang originates from the Spanish mestengo ‘wild, ownerless’. Mosquito is derived from mosca ‘fly’. The two-toned horse pinto is from the Spanish meaning ‘painted’.

Manana (meaning ‘tomorrow’) caught on years ago as a way of saying ‘Don’t worry, we’ll do it later’, and pronto is the opposite, meaning ‘straight away’.

There’s plenty more we could cover, but for now, as Arnie would say, hasta la vista, baby!

Happy Puzzling!