The notion of vogue has multiple meanings. Many of them are linked to fish of different families, whose names vary according to the geographical region.
It’s called common vogue at the Leporinus obtusidens, a fish of the teleost group inhabiting several rivers, ponds, lakes and South streams. Bogas can be found between two and almost ten kilograms in weight depending on the area. It is an edible animal that can be prepared in multiple ways: baked, grilled, stuffed, etc.
The Leporinus striatus, for its part, receives the name of striped boga or boguita. It is also from the South American region, living in waters temperate and warm, particularly in Paraguay, Brazil and the northeast of the Argentina Republic.
The smooth boga or fine boga is the fish whose scientific name is Schizodon borellii. Freshwater, this species lives in a tropical climate. Schizodon fasciatus and Schizodon platae are also called smooth boga.
In Europe there are also freshwater fish known as bogas. Among them we can name the Iberochondrostoma lusitanicum (Portuguese boga), the Pseudochondrostoma duriense (boga del Duero), the Pseudochondrostoma willkommii (boga del Guadiana) and the Pseudochondrostoma polylepis (boga del Tajo).
There are even saltwater fish called bogas: Haemulon striatum, Boops boops, Boops lineatus, and others.
Moreover, it is called vogue in the act of rowing (rowing) and what is in fashion. For example: “Now we will try to advance with long vogue until we reach the island”, “Electronic music is in vogue”, “In slow vogue we will not win the race.
Given this apparent distance between the two meanings of the term vogue, it goes without saying that it brings with it an interesting etymology. As in almost all cases, scholars do not have a single theory about its evolution, so it always remains to study some of them. In the first place, the meaning of vogue that is understood as a synonym for fashion seems to have its origin in the French term vogue.
In French, the word vogue can be translated as “fashion, popularity “, and it is found in the expression used internationally in vogue, which we understand as “fashionable, with a good reputation.” Regarding its etymology, vogue derives from the verb voguer, which means “to row”, so that we could describe its semantic evolution in the following way: to row, to navigate calmly through the water, to travel without problems among the sea of tastes of today.
In Spanish, as mentioned in one of the previous examples, we can make use of the expression in vogue to avoid the equivalent in French, although both have the same meaning. Before receiving this term in our language, it first derived from French to Italian around the 15th century, meaning “credit, reputation “.
All this becomes even more complex when we focus on the meaning that defines bogar as the action of rowing, since here not only the French term voguer comes into play, but also the verb vagôn, originating from the Franzian language (also known as Tedesco, Tudesco or lingua franca, was the language spoken by the Franks until the Middle Ages, when it became extinct).
This phrenic verb can be translated as “to move ” and in the past it was used to describe a rowing boat that was marching correctly. Now, it is believed that the verb bogar, understood as “to row”, has its origin in the Latin vocare, “to call”, as a representation of the shout that the helmsman gave to mark the pace, and this leads us to understand the expression ” be to the cry of fashion.
