Myrwen

"Loco" is an old American Southwestern word for "crazy". It came to us from colonial spanish back in the bad old days of english, french and spanish empires and still functions as an americanized word in an agricultural context as well as in old cartoon stereotypes.

some Astragalus species are called "loco weeds" because they cause motor and neurological impairments in animals that graze on them, creating the appearance that the animal is "loco", crazy or in a stupor. The disease / poisoning caused by the plant is still referred to as "locoism" in some texts. The active agent is Swainsonine [link] so a more "politically correct" term for the disease would be "swainsonine intoxication", but as for the plant It's still called by it's old common name since it still causes the same symptoms up to and including death.

I know what you mean about the languaje, I tried to read a Neruda poem once, but the language he wrote in had very few words in common with the "spanish" I was learning in school. Even the local spanish-ish dialect has nothing to do with any of what I was taught in school and the sad thing is, It's the language of the american southwest and is what should be taught in american schools. What they teach us is "proper" european spanish which sounds loco if you transliterate it because all the old properness is based on middle english (king james) symbolic speech. So our spanish-ish word for language is "tongue", as in : "no me puedo hablar en su lingua". ...or maybe it's just a conspiracy to make americans sound stupid It actually miffs me that I can be pretty articulate for a working stiff when I speak american english, but I have to sound like a puritan settler if I try to communicate in the spanish-ish that I was taught in school.

Wow, Thanks for asking.