English 101 with the Eagles

This morning Omar, the irrepressible office manager, came into my room with an urgent request. "I hear you speak a little English," Omar said. (This is a classic Omar joke.) "What does this word mean?"

He showed me a notepad where he'd written "colitas." I'd never heard the word before. I knew that colitis was an intestinal disease, but I figured/hoped that's not what he came to ask.

He hadn't. Omar's favorite way to improve his English, which is already quite good, is by listening to music and investigating the unfamiliar words. He'd heard "Hotel California" last night and was clearly listening closely. The opening lyrics, which escaped me the first 5,000 times I'd heard the song, are:

On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair
Warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air

I knew where this was headed.

We played the song on my iPod and I looked the word up in the dictionary, but it wasn't there. Omar left to take a phone call while I googled "colitas" -- and there it was. Slang for marijuana. Shocking.

For some reason I felt slightly sheepish telling Omar, but by the time I got to his office he and the rest of the staff had already figured it out.

"So he was high when he wrote the song," Omar said. Everyone bust out laughing. Omar's got the vernacular down pretty good too.