Alameda Santa Lucí­a Sign

Believe it or not what you call the Santa Lucí­a Street is the biggest controversy on this 6-block-long avenue. See, most people call it Calzada Santa Lucí­a; calzada is one of the Spanish words for paved avenue/street. Those who know and pay attention to the signage, would tell you there are no calzadas anywhere in La Antigua Guatemala. You should call it Alameda Santa Lucí­a; alameda being the Spanish word for a tree-lined street/throughway.

This controversy has gotten so big that spilled out of the 6-block avenue onto the rest of La Antigua Guatemala. Most cheap and poorly researched maps would have Alameda Santa Lucí­a as a Calzada.

Honest the whole thing is mute since most people in La Antigua do understand what you mean when you say Calzada/Alameda Santa Lucí­a. It’s the poor tourists who become confused with the maps pointing towards the calzada (or worst the abbreviation calz.) Santa Lucí­a. There is a second photo below that you can click on to get an enlargement of the tree-lined throughway as exhibit two.

So, you the jury, having heard the arguments and viewed the evidence for calzada vs. alameda, what is your verdict?

DICCIONARIO DE LA LENGUA ESPAÑOLA aside: Spanish speakers are lucky to have the ultimate and authoritative reference in the form of a dictionary known as DICCIONARIO DE LA LENGUA ESPAÑOLA – Vigésima segunda edición. Also, it is the fortunate fact that this dictionary is available online at www.rae.es as I am sure most people have never seen a printed copy in their entire lives (I know I haven’t, I do have however the Diccionario panhispánico de dudas, which is also available online). But, there is always room to improve on these great resources and some people did by making a quick query into the database-backed dictionary by entering a quick URL+word-being-searched. Here are two examples to make this resource clear: rae2.es/alameda to find the definition for Alameda and rae2.es/calzada for Calzada. In other words, you enter RAE2.ES/WORD-I-AM-LOOKING-FOR to get a fast definition pulled from the DICCIONARIO DE LA LENGUA ESPAÑOLA – Vigésima segunda edición. There you have it, don’t ever say I do not share this geeky stuff with you. 😉

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