Rio is Spanish for “river,” so “Rio Grande River” is a redundancy. Just write “Rio Grande.”

Non-Hispanic Americans have traditionally failed to pronounce the final “E” in “Grande”, but they’ve learned to do it to designate the large size of latte, so perhaps it’s time to start saying it the proper Spanish way: “REE-oh GRAHN-day.” Or to be really international we could switch to the Mexican name: “Rio Bravo.”

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