The origin of "gringo"

The mild perjorative "gringo" is a term used in Latin America to describe English-speakers. Many people think that the origin of the word came from the Mexican American War when American Troops marched into Mexico singing "Green Grow the Lilacs".

Not true.

As far back as the 1700's, the word existed in Castillian (classical Spanish) to describe anyone who had problems correctly pronouncing Spanish. It is likely derived from the Spanish word griego meaning "Greek".

Why "Greek"? Now we have to go further back to Roman times. While the Romans had great respect for their predecessors. the Greeks, they also liked to make fun of them. Most Greeks could not distinctly pronounce Latin, making their speech hard to understand by Romans. Also, since the Greek and Latin alphabets were different, things written in Greek were unintelligible by Romans.

Over time, anything that was illegible or incomprehensible became labelled with the Latin phrase Graecum est; non potest legi. Which has come down over the centuries into both the Spanish and English languages, amongst others, as:

It's all Greek to me.