For those of you who’ve never taken it, Spanish has two words for the verb “to be,” ser and estar. The difference is that estar indicates location or temporary condition, while ser indicates nature or a permanent state. Even more interesting, some adjectives are overloaded and have different meanings depending on which verb you use them with. Listo means “ready” if you use it with estar, but “smart” (in the sense of “sharp” or “bright”) used with ser. Aburrido is “bored” with estar but “boring” with ser.

I suppose you’re wondering where I’m going with this. Follow along:

1. The use of Spanish increases as the Hispanic population of the US does.

2. The use of English words as loan words into Spanish/Spanglish continues as well. Hence, the world nerf gets imported as nerfir, and it gets the adjective form nerfido. As we saw in that article, the usage of nerf, nerfir, nerfido will go beyond games into all walks of life.

3. Now nerfido can be expanded to have both a meaning with estar—“to be in a weakened condition” or ser—“to be crippled or debilitated.”

Here are some examples, so you don’t get confused when you wind up in Texas in the year 2030.

Mi pelo está nerfido: I got my hair cut.

Mi pelo es nerfido: I’m going bald.

Mi salud está nerfido: I’m feeling ill right now.

Mi salud es nerfido: My health is poor.