Sumercé
'Your mercy' — the warm, colonial-era 'you' still alive in Bogotá and Boyacá.
Related lesson: Colombian Spanish — A Survival Guide.
Hear it in context
Siga, sumercé, y se sienta.
Come in, dear, and have a seat.
¿Sumercé qué va a llevar hoy?
What will you be taking today, dear?
Gracias, sumercé, muy amable.
Thank you, dear, very kind of you.
What It Actually Means
Sumercé (from su merced, “your mercy”) is a form of “you” used in Bogotá and especially the Boyacá highlands — courteous like usted but warmer, closer to “dear” or “my friend” than to any formal pronoun.
Where It Comes From
Colonial Spanish address: vuestra merced (“your mercy”) is the same phrase that eroded into modern usted everywhere else. The Colombian Andes kept an intermediate fossil alive, and turned its formality into affection.
How Natives Use It
It conjugates exactly like usted: “¿sumercé quiere un tinto?”. Grandparents say it to grandchildren, vendors to customers, campesinos to neighbors — hierarchy dissolved into tenderness. In Bogotá it’s enjoying a small revival among young speakers who find it charmingly local.
Common Pitfall
Don’t use it outside the Colombian Andes — in Medellín or on the coast it sounds like a Bogotá costume, and abroad nobody will parse it. And it’s never sarcastic or servile in local mouths; if a market woman calls you sumercé, she is being kind, not curtsying.