¿qué bolá?

What it means

1. 1.

   What's up? How's it going? The standard Cuban opener, and the phrase foreigners hear first and imitate worst.

2. 2.

   With a following noun phrase, 'what's the story with —': ¿Qué bolá con el dinero? — what's happening about the money?

Examples with translations

• ¿Qué bolá, asere? ¿Todo bien?

  What's up, bro? All good?

• ¿Qué bolá con la guagua, viene o no viene?

  What's the deal with the bus, is it coming or not?

Where it comes from

Literally 'what ball?'. The origin is genuinely unsettled: proposals include the ball as a metaphor for news in circulation (correr la bola, 'to spread the word') and a clipping of an older ¿qué bola hay?. It is conventionally written with an accent on the final syllable — bolá — to mark the Cuban stress, which distinguishes it in print from the ordinary noun bola.

First attested: mid-20th century

Other forms

Spellings and variants:

¿qué bola?, ¿qué volá?