Mexican X-plainer: Chingue y Chingue

One of my favorite things about my dialect of Spanish (Northern Mexican / Mexican American) is an odd construction that emphasizes (often irritating) repetition.

I call it the “chingue y chingue” form, from the common vulgar expression for “riding someone’s ass” / “being fucking annoying.”

The form uses the auxiliary verb “estar” (to be) as well as quasi-auxiliaries like “andar” and “seguir.” But rather than combining with the gerund (a main verb ending in -ando or -iendo, like English -ing) to construct the normal progressive tenses, the auxiliary pairs up with a repeated version of the main verb, ending with -e (at least in my dialect—more on this below).

• M’ijo estaba cante y cante, bien feliz. (My son was singing away, real happy, literally “was sing and sing”)
• La niña está llore y llore. (The girl is crying her heart out, literally “is cry and cry.”)
• Ese güey sigue baile y baile. (That dude keeps on dancing, literally “keeps dance and dance.”)

Some people will assume this is some weird form of the subjunctive (which for verbs ending in -ar takes -e in the singular).

But nope.

Complications. Look at plural subjects—the form doesn’t change:

• Anduvimos baile y baile toda la noche. (We were dancing with abandon all night long.)
• Ustedes siempre están trabaje y trabaje. (Y’all are always working your butts off.)