Big Cheese

I laughed out loud when I saw a toasty orange vehicle go past me on my way home on the Saw Mill Parkway on Friday afternoon, February 19th. I was marvelling at the orange color, and then I read the license plate: QUESO, the Spanish word for cheese. Really, the car was the color of the kind of melted orange cheese you might find on a perfectly baked macaroni and cheese. And the Latin connection is that queso comes from the Latin word cāseus, -ī m. cheese, which, according to the Oxford Latin Dictionary, can also be used as a term of endearment. Years ago one of my first students at my current school was talking about taking The Cheese home from school; she was referring to her square little schoolbus, also a yellow-orange vehicle.