Easily Confused Words: Kahuna vs. Cojones

Kahuna and cojones are easily confused words.

The spell-check application of most word processing software programs would not catch a slip-up of these two words. Spell-check is looking for words that aren’t in its dictionary, and words that resemble words in its dictionary, but are possibly spelled wrong. Spell-check isn’t perfect. It doesn’t know and can’t guess what word you wanted, or what word you meant, it can only judge the words on the page. If you used words that are all spelled correctly, it gives you a pass anyway.

Autocorrect suggests words that start with the same letters. It’s suggesting what word you may want to save time, but quite often, its suggestions are pretty off base. They don’t help you out, but they do make you laugh.

Kahuna (“kuh-who-nuh”) is a Hawaiian word. It means an indigenous religious leader or expert in a subject matter. Kahuna got associated with surfing thanks to the US 1959 movie Gidget, and the rash of beach party movies that followed in its wake.

Similar words from other languages include shaman and guru, Their actual meanings are religious or specialized knowledge to aid their cultures, and they’ve been trivialized in pop culture.

Cojones (“kuh-hoh-nayz”) is a Spanish word. It is a euphemism for testicles, and it’s used similarly to the English “balls.”

Balls is used to hint at bravery, courage, gutsiness, or fearlessness. Truthfully you don’t have to have a certain set of genitals to exhibit bravery, but the euphemisms and the sayings persist in multiple languages.

The following story uses both words correctly:

With climate change, native crops to Hawaii were seeing decreasing yields and Kailani wanted to help any way she could. Getting a formal education in agronomy and environmental sciences was the first step in becoming a “kahuna” in these areas. Next she was going to study with elders back on the islands.

As she was about to cross the stage to accept her PhD, she remembered a conversation she had years earlier:

“Do you have the cojones, that is, the fortitude, to undertake this journey? It’s a lot of work and studying,” said her stepmom. “You know, you never seemed to like school growing up.”

Kailani was used to her stepmother’s doubting her by now. It didn’t send her into a tailspin like when she was younger. “Yes. Nothing means more to me than helping our people here.”