Farra, marcha, parranda, jarana, juerga, francachela, jolgorio, cachondeo, jaleo, bureo… As it could not be otherwise, Spanish has a good handful of terms to express that one goes out partying, abandoning for a few hours (or days) the iron marking of routine and responsibilities. There are also colloquial expressions with the same meaning and one of the oldest that has survived to this day is “to leave picos pardos”. This is a phrase used for centuries, although originally it was a euphemism to describe a much more sordid entertainment plan.
Beginning with the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE), “andar de picos pardos” is a colloquial verbal phrase that means “to go on a spree or to have fun in places of bad note”. Likewise, “andar alguien de picos pardos” appears, which is “indulging in useless or clumsy things, for not working and for going wild, and can be applied to useful and profitable ones.”
Originally, leaving or walking with brown beaks meant going out on a spree and ending up in a brothel. And it is that in the past the authorities forced prostitutes to wear a doublet (a tight garment that covered from the shoulders to the waist) with four peaks or brown edges in order to distinguish them from other women.
It is not clear when a uniform began to be imposed on prostitutes, but it seems that in the Middle Ages they already had to wear some emblem so as not to confuse the men who went out to have fun. Alberto Buitrago, in his Dictionary of sayings and set phrases, points out that in the time of Alfonso IX of Castile (1166-1230) sex workers were already forced to wear saffron-colored headdresses.
Experts disagree on when prostitutes started wearing brown spikes. Some authors maintain that it was in the 16th century with an ordinance issued by Felipe II, since during the Golden Age the practice of going out to a party and ending up in a nightclub had spread (actually, this has been happening since the beginning of the times), being at that time when the expression to leave picos pardos arose. And some say that it was Carlos III, who reigned between 1759 and 1788, who legislated to force prostitutes to sew dark fabrics in the corners of their skirts.
With the passage of time, the expression irse de picos pardos was universalized to refer to a party that any man or woman joins, although in some cases the sexual and macho meaning is still valid.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
