What's a Gringo? What's a Gabacho?

Dear Gabacho,

What does gringo really mean? Should I be offended when I hear it? Where does that word come from? What about Gabacho?

Curious Gringo

Querido gringo curioso,

In a nutshell these words mean "white person" . While there are many theories about the origins of the word gringo (prounounced GREEN-go) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gringo the most likely seems to be that it is a derived from the word griego (gree-EH-go), which means Greek, as in, "It's Greek to me"...it's foreign or unintelligible to me. However, the word of the times (at least in the US and Mexico, and 65% of the US Latino population is Mexican) is gabacho, which comes from the Spanish (Spain) as a derogatory term for the French. Nowadays the Spanish (Spain) use the term guiri (pronounced GUEE-dee) for "white people" and Argentinos use the word Yanqui (pronounced SHAHN-kee). There is debate as to whether or not these words are pejorative, but context always plays an important roll.