I speak spanish so it is familiar to me, but they are saying that it means STRAIGHT as in straight line winds. I am more familiar with the Spanish word DERECHO meaning RIGHT, as in “derechos humanos”, human rights. “a la derecho”, means to the right, “a la izquierda” means to the left, and the word for LEFTIST is “izquierdista”.
I studied French, and I like their word for left — “sinistre”.
Furthermore, I live in the mid-west where we’ve had straight line winds all the time. We just call them “straight-line tornados”. We don’t need no “steenkin” Spanish word to explain the destruction. A derecho blew the steeple off of my stable in 1989 and another derecho blew the back doors of my barn open and flipped them onto the roof in about 2003, or 2004. I lost my home owner’s insurance after that one. They paid, but they cancelled me.
Another derecho blew right down the main street of Cedarburg about a mile from me about 10 years ago and broke, or uprooted, all of the 100-150 year old trees that lined Washington Ave. Nobody diagnosed it as a derecho at the time. “Straight line tornado” was the diagnosis here. Midwesterners don’t whine, and they don’t put on airs. They just clean up and carry on.
Pardon my weak Spanish but isn’t derecha right and derecho straight? My tapes have lots of driving instructions and slams against North Americans.