FEATURE - Venezuelan slang key to bawdy Chavez's success

By Charlie Devereux

CARACAS (Reuters) - A head of state describing a mobile phone by using a crude term for male genitalia would spark outcry in most countries, but in Venezuela such language is a big part of President Hugo Chavez's popular appeal.

Chavez has made vulgar language and insults a trademark of his decade in power. He once told the country he would have sex with his wife when he got home that day, has called Americans "shits" and described former U.S. President George W. Bush as "the devil" and a "donkey."

So it was no great surprise when he recently called the first cellphone to be made in Venezuela the "vergatario," a word derived from a popular slang term for penis.

The word is widely used in western Venezuela to refer to something seen as high quality and it raised little more than giggles when Chavez talked about the phone.

The president's earthy and sometimes downright vulgar speech exasperates opponents who are often the target of his insults, but it helps explain the socialist's enduring popularity with followers who relate to his humble roots in a dirt-floored country hut.

Chavez, who studied to university level in a military academy, shot to fame after a failed coup in 1992. He went on to win the presidency in 1998 and his approval ratings remain above 50 percent after a decade of social spending and nationalizations in the South American oil exporter.

"I'm going to call Fidel Castro on the vergatario. We won't be intercepted," Chavez, a friend of the former Cuban leader, said the week the phone was launched.

Chavez says he was not referring to male genitalia when he nicknamed the $14 phone, made using Chinese technology and featuring a camera, radio and MP3 player.