Sobremesa is the time spent talking at the table after a meal is over. Mexico News Daily calls it “a cultural tradition ingrained in Mexican culture.” A guest who gets up and leaves as soon as the food is finished will seem rude.
At a business meal, the article notes, “the sobremesa can be the weightiest part.”
Carnal is a close friend who is loved like a brother. Cuate comes from the Nahuatl coatl, which meant both “serpent” and “twin.” A woman who had twins used to say that she had cuates. Today the word means a friend. Compa and valedor are other everyday words for a friend.
Mexican offices hold Christmas parties called posadas. A column in Excélsior describes these office posadas as events held “cada 365 días para dar gracias por un año más de jale” (every 365 days to give thanks for another year of work).
In 2017, a business consultant quoted by Expansión explained why such parties matter. “Al convivir con colaboradores y directivos, se pueden reforzar los lazos comunicativos” (When staff and managers spend time together, the bonds of communication can grow stronger).
On September 25, 2023, the business columnist Mauricio Candiani asked in El Financiero: “¿Invitarías a tu jefe a cenar a tu casa?” (Would you invite your boss to dinner at your home?). His answer was yes, “pero nunca forzada o conveniencieramente” (but never forced or for convenience). “Soy partidario de la socialización en casa” (I am in favor of socializing at home).
At work, he argued, it pays “construir puentes de armonía, confianza y entendimiento” (to build bridges of harmony, trust and understanding). He also drew a line: “Una cosa es gozar de un jefe cercano y otra es confundir cercanía con amistad” (It is one thing to enjoy a close boss and another to confuse closeness with friendship).
On December 1, 1946, Miguel Alemán Valdés became president of Mexico. He was a civilian and a law graduate of UNAM. According to México Desconocido, official protocol used his academic degree “como título de su investidura” (as the title of his office).
Many politicians then began to use licenciado as a title of prestige. Mi licenciado became “sinónimo de poder” (a synonym for power) in politics, the law and the bureaucracy. From there the use spread to the rest of society.
In Mexico, a university degree becomes a form of address. Licenciado or licenciada is used for “anyone who has a degree in any number of fields,” one guide explains. Engineers are addressed as ingeniero or ingeniera, and teachers, university professors included, as maestro or maestra. Another guide notes that calling someone simply Ingeniero is “completely acceptable” even when the speaker knows the person’s first name.
Article 250 of Mexico’s Federal Penal Code punishes anyone who claims the standing of a professional without the legal title. The penalty is one to six years in prison and a fine.
The title rests on the cédula profesional, which the Ministry of Public Education issues through its Directorate General of Professions. The cédula is required in fields such as health, law, architecture and engineering.
In 1993, the linguist Scott A. Schwenter published a study of tú and usted in the Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica of El Colegio de México. His Mexican informants were middle-class adults in Mexico City. They chose tú in 32 percent of their answers. The study found that they tend to use usted with people of every age group.
The sample was small, 18 informants, and the data are more than 30 years old.
The linguist Cristal Cepeda has studied the use of usted in Mexico and other Latin American countries. She told Mexico News Daily that usted is used “with older people and authority figures, especially outside the family context.”
In Mexico City, tú is now “the most frequent, but not categorical, form of address.”
An albur is a Mexican play on words with a double meaning. An article from the Autonomous University of the State of Hidalgo describes it as a way to “codificar mensajes a dos niveles” (code messages on two levels), so that the listener may grasp one level or both. The article names Tepito, in Mexico City, as the model of albur culture.
In an exchange of albures, “pierde quien calla o se tarda en contestar” (whoever falls silent or is slow to answer loses).