Ah Language!

We had a lovely visit from a possible future neighbor. Claudia, we will call her (names have been changed to protect the innocent) is a returning UY citizen who has lived in the States for many years. Her English is perfect (almost).

She was explaining to us the difficulty in evicting tenants in her newly purchased apartment in Montevideo. She informed us that the "Judge executed the tenants". We weren't aware that the judicial system was so severe in Uruguay.

Well, it turns out that the the verb "ejecutar", while it does mean "to execute" refers more to serving a legal document. So "executing the tenant" was merely serving them notice to quit the premises and was not a death sentence, as we first had thought. Good news for renters in Montevideo.