According to the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy ( RAE ), pituto is a concept used in Chile to refer to a small tube that protrudes from an object . The term can also refer, in colloquial language, to occasional employment that is economically advantageous and that is carried out in parallel with stable and formal work activity.
Pituto also names someone who, due to their social position, can help someone solve a difficulty or problem . Another use of the notion refers to the advantage or shortcut that allows you to avoid steps or procedures.
In other countries , pituto is a small element, whose name is unknown and which is difficult to describe . The term, in this framework, is used to name parts of machines or devices. For example: “I have to go buy the pin that locks the strap” , “A pin on the lock broke and now I can't close the door” , “I went to the hardware store but I couldn't find the pin that I need” .
It is worth mentioning that, from an etymological point of view, this term derives from pitito , one of the possible diminutives of pito . The latter, for its part, can be defined as an instrument that produces a generally high-pitched sound when the user blows through its mouthpiece. This word is onomatopoeic in nature, since it arose from piiit , the way in which we represent precisely the aforementioned sound. A verb that is also related to this onomatopoeia is pitar .
In Argentina , the idea of pituto was popularized through a police case . On October 27, 2002 , in her home in a gated community in Buenos Aires, sociologist María Marta García Belsunce was found dead. Although at first it was thought that it was a domestic accident, it was later discovered that he had five bullet wounds to the head.
Weeks after the event, the victim's half-brother, Juan Hurtig , declared in a prosecutor's office that on the day of the incident he found a “pituto” at the scene and threw it into the toilet, thinking that it was of no use: said pituto turned out to be a projectile Hurtig stated that he showed the object to María Marta 's brother, Horacio García Belsunce , and other relatives, and maintained that they all wanted to throw it away, a decision that - along with other factors - made them suspects in the crime .
On the other hand, there is a clown group known as Los Pitutos , originally from South America but with a success that has led them to perform in various parts of the world, including North America, Europe and Asia. Its members are three: Pituto Jr., Fosforito and Panchulito .
The rock group called Sexual Democracia was formed in 1988 in Chile, in the city of Valdivia, and has in its repertoire a song titled "Los pitutos", included in its first album, Los niños buenos . In this context, the term in question refers to a person who has a position within society that allows him or her to do someone a favor to solve a specific problem, whether through legal means or not; for example, getting the other person to avoid military service by using a medical license or giving them a job without having to take an entrance test.
This meaning is associated with the physical characteristics of a pituto, since it is a small tube through which one can pass to avoid a longer and more complex route, the thicker tube through which most people must pass to get their goals .