Chameleon
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Further information on the Mitsubishi Pajero SUV
For the curious, the Spanish word pajero means
‘wanker’, from paja meaning
‘wank’ (literally, ‘straw’), in
the expression hacerse una paja, (literally
‘to do oneself a straw’). These slang
expressions come from the fact that both a straw and
the penis are similar in being pipe-like. It is
the first meaning to come to mind to Spanish speakers
in both Spain and the majority of Latin America.
Pajero has some non-rude agricultural meanings, referring to someone selling or transporting straw or (in the Canary Islands dialect) the barn where it is kept. These are the original meanings of the word, but not common these days. It is also an obscure nickname for people from Santo Domingo de la Calzada in La Rioja, presumably due to historical straw production in the village.
In the dialects of Nicaragua, Colombia and Guatemala, paja is used to mean ‘tap’ (i.e. the end of the ‘pipe’), and so, in Nicaragua at least, a pajero is a plumber, to the mirth of other Spanish-speakers.
However, none of these rude or innocent meanings gave
the vehicle its name. There is a feline,
scientifically classified as Oncifelis colocolo,
which is known in Spanish as the gato pajero
(‘grass cat’) or gato de las pampas
(‘Pampas cat’). It is similiar to the
ocelot and hunts small animals in the reeds and
grasslands of South America. There are several
subspecies, including Oncifelis colocolo
colocolo found in central Chile and Oncifelis
colocolo pajeros found in central Argentina.
In this official press release in Japanese (media.mitsubishi-motors.com/pressrelease/j/products/detail310.html),
Mitsubishi explains that they got the name for the
vehicle from the latter subspecies, which they call by
its short name Felis pajeros. The Pampas
cat featured on the emblem on early Pajero SUVs.
Genteel sources such as the BBC claim that pajero means
‘masturbator’, which is incorrect given
that it is offensive slang, just like the English
term. The pronunciation of Pajero tends to
be anglicised to ‘puh-JEER-oh’, but the
original Spanish is quite different: very approximately
‘pah-HAIR-oh’. It is the anglicised
pronunciation that is used as the basis of Japanese
パジェロ (pa je ro) and Chinese
帕杰罗 (pà jié
luó).
The Mitsubishi Pajero was renamed Montero (‘hunter in the mountains’) in Spain and the Americas, and — strangely — Shogun (‘Japanese warlord’) in the UK; but people in other parts of the world, including Australia and continental Europe, drive about cars which proudly proclaim their driver to be a Pajero in lettering along the side.
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