Article 23 of Mexico’s law on credit information companies requires the credit bureaus to keep a person’s credit history “al menos durante un plazo de setenta y dos meses” (for a period of at least seventy-two months). N+ explains that debts above 1,000 UDIS are removed after six years in the database of the Buró de Crédito.
A person with unpaid debts is said to estar en el Buró, to be in the bureau. N+ and Xataka both remind readers that the bureau “no es una lista negra” (is not a blacklist).
Mexico’s consumer protection agency, Profeco, runs the Buró Comercial. According to Expansión, it is a website that shows which companies have a registered adhesion contract, and “también si han tenido quejas u otros procedimientos” (also whether they have had complaints or other proceedings).
President José López Portillo promised to defend the peso “como un perro,” like a dog. Excélsior dates the phrase to August 17, 1981. Expansión places it before his last government report, without giving a date.
The crisis that followed, Expansión writes, helped “devaluar en más de 400% el valor de nuestra moneda” (devalue our currency by more than 400 percent).
On December 1, 2018, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador made 100 commitments in the Zócalo. A year later, he said he had fulfilled 89 of them.
On September 1, 2021, he said: “De los 100 compromisos que hice en el Zócalo hemos cumplido la gran mayoría 98, sólo tenemos pendientes dos” (Of the 100 commitments I made in the Zócalo, we have fulfilled the great majority, 98. Only two are pending). These counts are his own. No independent count was found.
Cría fama y échate a dormir, “build a reputation and lie down to sleep.” El Imparcial explains that the saying “hace referencia a la reputación” (refers to reputation) and to how hard it is to change an image once someone has created it.
The newspaper notes that the saying comes from Spanish tradition. It can be used as a warning or with irony.
On March 21, 1811, at Acatita de Baján in Coahuila, the royalist officer Ignacio Elizondo captured Miguel Hidalgo, Ignacio Allende and other insurgent leaders. He had pretended that he wanted to join them. In his own report, he describes a reception “con apariencia de un recibimiento obsequioso” (with the appearance of an obliging welcome).
The historical calendar of Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission reads: “Allende fue traicionado por el teniente coronel Ignacio Elizondo en Acatita de Baján, Coahuila” (Allende was betrayed by Lieutenant Colonel Ignacio Elizondo at Acatita de Baján, Coahuila).
In 2017, the linguist Niktelol Palacios of El Colegio de México published a study of softened speech in Puebla in the journal Anuario de Letras. Lingüística y Filología. It drew on the PRESEEA corpus of Puebla, among speakers with little formal education.
The study names one aim of the softening devices that these speakers use: “se trata de evitar al máximo el desacuerdo” (the point is to avoid disagreement as far as possible).
In 1919, Jesús Guajardo pretended to break with General Pablo González in order to win the trust of Emiliano Zapata. México Desconocido writes that he gained it “con visitas, pláticas y pruebas de colaboración” (with visits, talks and proofs of collaboration). On April 10, 1919, Zapata came to the gate of the Hacienda de Chinameca, in Morelos, and was shot.
According to México Desconocido, Guajardo received “50 mil pesos en monedas de oro” (50,000 pesos in gold coins).
Hoy no se fía, mañana sí. “No credit today, tomorrow yes.” The Mexico City magazine Chilango, in an article on the signs and cries of street markets, calls this sign “famoso” (famous).
The same article opens by naming a blunter version among the best-known cries and signs of the markets of Mexico City: Hoy no fío, mañana tampoco, “No credit today, and none tomorrow either.”
Contrabando y traición, “smuggling and betrayal,” is the title song of a Los Tigres del Norte album, written by Ángel González. Sopitas dates the album to 1974, and Posta to 1973. The song tells of Emilio Varela and Camelia la Texana, a smuggling couple. Emilio wants to leave Camelia for his true love in San Francisco. Feeling betrayed, Camelia kills him and flees with the money.
Sopitas calls it one of the most important songs of the group’s career, a song that gave “un nuevo auge a los corridos mexicanos” (a new boom to Mexican corridos).