IAtionary: Espotter

Es-pot-ter [es-SPOT-er, es-poh-TAIR]

1. The Spanglish word for someone designated to keep another from falling and hurting themselves on the Ropes Course

Rough Translation: Spotter

Language of Origin: Espanglés to Stibitian

The Spanish Honor Society (SHH- it's in Spanish) was at the Ropes Course, and Mr. Stibitz was supervising my group. We are supposed to speak only Spanish, but none of us knew how to say 'spotter.' We asked Mr. S how to say it, and he said "espotter," using the first pronunciation above- said like the letter S then the word spotter. One of the leaders of the SHH pointed out that, according to the accent rules of Spanish, the stress would fall on the final syllable, and we proceeded to use the second pronunciation above. When it was time to switch activities, Sra. Riggs came by and heard us using the word. When we explained, she laughed, then realized that she didn't know how to say spotter either. So we kept using espotter. I asked Mr. Stibitz how to spell it today- despite the Spanish tendancy to only use one T when there is one T sound, Mr. Stibitz said it was spelled with two. And he still uses the original pronounciation.