Ay bendito

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Ay bendito, or more accurately, ¡Ay, Bendito!, is a Puerto Rican expression unique to the nation that, in Spanish, literally translated, means: "Oh, Blessed!", shortened form of "Oh, Blessed be God!". It is sometimes shortened further as ¡Bendito!, or even "¡'Dito!"

More accurately, the expression Ay bendito depicts two things:

• An expression of compassion, pity, empathy, sorrow or plain sadness about a bad situation (and/or the human being that suffers it), or
• The act of offering empathy, and/or aiding or assisting the sufferer of the bad situation.

"Ay bendito" (in the second context, without the comma) has been traditionally regarded as a desirable, defining characteristic of the collective Puerto Rican psyche. The phrase itself is often used by Puerto Ricans as, for instance, "Oh, dear" is used in English speaking countries. Puerto Ricans are sometimes stereotypically referred to as "The Ay Bendito People" by many Latin Americans, and a popular Puerto Rican song, "Esos No Son De Aquí" ("Those Aren't From Here"), written by Rafael Hernández Marín even refers to this fact explicitly, in the line: "Los que dicen 'Ay, Bendito'/Esos sí, esos sí" ("Those who say 'Ay, Bendito'/Those are, indeed; those are, indeed (Puerto Ricans)")

However, in a Puerto Rican sociological context, Ay bendito is sometimes regarded as a (sometimes unhealthy) concern for the sufferer that moves the person aiding him to sacrifice his or her position in order for the sufferer to improve. Therefore, the expression can sometimes carry a derogatory connotation if the act of aiding the sufferer happens to the detriment of the aiding party. This connotation may also be evident when the aiding party may be perceived as a busybody or meddler, or when the "sufferer" takes unreasonable advantage of the aid being offered. In this context, a common Puerto Rican expression deriding Ay bendito is: "El 'Ay, Bendito' es el primo hermano de 'Jódete'" ("Oh, Blessed' is the first cousin of 'Go Fuck Yourself'", in Spanish)

The expression is spelled incorrectly as "hay bendito" sometimes ("hay" being a homophone which actually means "there is/there are").