A very short story first. I went to dinner with the wife the other night to El Azteca. Mediocre food, but it was close, and at the end, I paid for the diner with my Mensa Mastercard (supposedly for every $100 I spend, I get 1 IQ point… a few more months and I’ll be Stephen Hawking).
The waiter takes the card up to be swiped and as he is doing so, he calls over another waitress and laughs as he points out the word ‘Mensa’ on the card. She joins in on the chuckling and they say something I could not here (nor likely understand I am sure). As he gets ready to bring the card back, he shows it to another waiter and he gets a chuckle too. At my table he keeps a perfectly straight face, I pay and leave.
Today I went to http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/tr and entered Mensa to go from Spanish to English, and what comes out but the word ‘stupid’. After laughing my OWN ass off, I find I have to ask. Is the name for the society of geniuses the same as the Spanish word for ‘stupid’ or is AltaVista having a good laugh at my expense (and I know the real meaning of the group comes from the Latin word for table)?
Dang – didn’t mean to submit that yet. I was saying…
Mensa means dumb or silly, like the av translation indicates, but in the feminine form. Not generally in the sense that stupid indicates as far as harshness, but more like dumb.
Since you went to dinner with your wife, I’ll assume you’re a bona-fide dude. The term menso would aptly apply to you.
Mensa is the feminine for “silly or stupid”. I’m not sure where it’s used because “tonto” means silly and “estúpido” means stupid. But it does mean silly/stupid.
Menso is Mexican slang and is synonymous with tonto which can mean dumb, foolish, silly and a few other things. Hacerse el tonto (menso) is to play the fool or act dumb. ¡No te hagas menso! = don’t act dumb!