Anyone familiar with The Lone Ranger and Spanish has always wondered, “Why is he calling his sidekick ‘stupid’? Is it deliberate or just a coincidence?” Well, NPR’s All Things Considered has the answer. It turns out that the writer for the radio show was looking in an atlas at Arizona and saw Tonto Basin. He liked the way “Tonto” sounded, so that’s how the character’s name came to be. Now if we only knew what “Kemo Sabe” meant.
Been there, done that.
Done what?
That article doesn’t talk about the cited inspiration of “Tonto” at all.
Since the title of the article is “In the old Lone Ranger series, what did “kemosabe” mean?” astorian’s obviously talking about the last sentence he quoted
Wait! Wait! I thought Gary Larson positively proved that “Kemo sabe” means “Horse’s ass”?
Kemosabe? I thought he was saying ‘Chemo Sorbet’.
In my family, we have a long tradition that “Kemo Sabe” means “Stinky Feet.” My dad, he’s a hoot.
Kemosabe is an ancient medical treatment for cancer from Japan.
I was wondering why they always put some in with my sushi.
The way that “Tonto” was pronounced on the show was “tahn-toe”, which in Spanish would be the word “tanto” meaning “so much” or “so many”. The word “tonto” in Spanish is pronounced more like “tone-toe”. Just sayin’.