Why in Mexico do we say “send”

Undoubtedly, Mexico is a country where popular expressions are used and most origins date from important historical moments. We currently use “command” to replace it with the simple question of what? By being clueless and not listening to what we were asked. However, from an early age it is known that adults express: “You don't say what, you say “you say “command”, and although the origin is not known as such, there are versions that this answer has its origin in the Colony.

The Mexican Academy of Language recognizes this expression by using it to respond to someone's call. It is said that the lowest castes on the social scale such as the mestizos and Indians used to use “command me”, and later evolved to “send me you” to whites and creoles as a sign of submission at the time of the Viceroyalty. But there is no official document that supports this theory and therefore it is thought that it is an open version that ended up being adopted by Mexicans.

The Colony or Viceroyalty of Mexico began in the 16th century when the Spaniards arrived in Tenochtitlan and for the history of Mexico it was from the foundation of New Spain where it was ruled by a representative of the king of Spain who had the title of Viceroy.

It lasted 300 years (1521-1810) and a social division was established in the shape of a pyramid, where at the tip were the Spaniards who had the greatest privileges, followed by the creoles, Spaniards born in America, then the mestizos, the result between the mixture of Spaniards and Indians, in the penultimate place the indigenous people and finally the slaves who were mostly black from Africa, of whom we also adopted a few words.

There is another theory that it comes from much earlier in the Catalan language and that it was adopted in Spanish, since in some regions of Catalonia and especially in older people, variants such as “mani'm” which means send me, or “mana” command are still used; and it does not represent submission because it is used among equals.

It is believed that it is an expression that denotes submission by the verb mandar, but it is only one of the different forms that Mexicans have adopted in their language as a way of respect, since it is considered a polite way of answering a question and it is not necessarily used towards someone superior, but it does not matter who is the interlocutor.

Over time, common expressions such as “send me” or “send me” have been used and they all come from the same word mande. It is possible that in its origin it was in the manner of submission but today it is not known for that, so many people continue to use it to indicate respect. Although there are those who believe that it is less and less used as it is replaced by words such as “tell me” or a simple “tell me”.

Another expression that is currently used and comes from the time of the colony is” waters” that it refers to being careful about something; and before it referred to the water that was thrown over the balconies and contained water from the dishes, clothes, and even the waste in the bathroom, to alert people who were passing by the place, they shouted “water goes” and over time it changed to “waters”.

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