Matriz means womb or uterus. It is also the word matrix in English. But the oddest use of the word that I have seen is when it refers to a company, or main office. When referring to a company it would be the parent company, or more specifically the mother company of a business.

Today I took my son to a class at one of the local sports complexes. It is a class that we have to pay a fee for. They have a computer system that they keep their records in. But, typically, the lady working the computer only knows how to do the six steps that has been explained to her. She does not know how to deal with problems.

She could not get logged into the system because her contraseña was not being accepted. As much as she tried to type in her password, the system kept rejecting it. Though I did not know her password, I knew what the problem was. She was typing her password with the CAPS LOCK key turned on. She never did get into the system. I will pay next month.

Contraseña is a password. It can also be a countersign as in an indication that something is having a reaction to something else.

Some words one can just look at and guess approximately what it is, not with these.

Escoba is a broom. Barrer is what you do with a broom, to sweep.

Spanish cartoons have helped my children learn most of their Spanish. Me too.

One such cartoon introduces a little girl and says she is graciosa.

Graciosa or gracioso can mean what it looks like gracious or graceful but it also means funny. And this is how it is used in reference to the girl.

Promedio is the average or middle of something. While there is nothing too exciting about the noun promedio, I thought it was interesting to find there was a verb, promediar. It means to divide in two or to mediate.

One of the things that make the Internet useful is that it has vínculos. A vínculo is a link from one website to another. It is what bonds or ties the two pages to one another.

Like many words on the web, it is not web specific. It is used when trying to make a connection between two events or items, i.e., there must be a link between eating junk food and getting fat.

There is another word for link that can be used to make a connection—eslabón. However, eslabón is more often used to mean a link in a chain.

You will sometimes see “y por si eso fuera poco” towards the bottom of advertisements. It means “and if that were not enough.”

I have seen it before, but because I recently was trying to explain to someone what it meant, I guess I am more sensitive to noticing it. I have seen it quite a bit in the last couple of weeks. I heard someone saying it earlier this week.

We say it in English too, but because it is almost word for word the same in English and Spanish, it strikes me as a funny phrase.