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#42618 10/02/01 01:57 PM
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Or as Cristina, the hostess of el show Cristina, said, catching a bus in Cuba means doing nasty and illegal things to children in Mexican (or is it vice versa)


#42619 10/02/01 08:17 PM
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As far as I know, as that is not a term I'm familiar with, I vote for it being Cuban or sumpin'. Of course even artists, musicians, and college students draw the line at talking about that subject in mixed company, so [shrugging, clicks on next thread].


#42620 10/03/01 12:31 AM
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In Italian (as other Latin language cultures), there are many paired names, where the ending indicates the gender: Maria/Mario Francesca/Francesco Jacinta/Jacinto Fabrizia/Fabrizio Sandra/Sandro Paula/Paulo etc etc.
Then there are some that are disctinctly masculine or feminine, but don't have a corresponding pair: Marco, Fiorella, Laura, Sara. etc , but these still follow the a-for-feminine and o-for masculine rules.

The names I find particularly confusing are the masculine names that end in 'a' : eg Luca, Andrea and Nicola
Some-one told me that they are different because they come from Greek roots. Can anyone verify this?




#42621 10/03/01 12:53 AM
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In reply to:

An example of confused gender is the Italian word mano = hand. It is declined as if masculine (singular mano, plural mani), but it is actually feminine gender



Many of the Italian words for parts of the body are irregular, in their plural forms and/or gender. A fact I as pleased to be able to point out to my English students in Italy when they complained about the irregular spelling and/or plurals of so many of the English words in the same lexical set!

Some examples:
Italian for lip: labbro (sing, masc); while lips: labbra (plur, fem)

Italian for foot: piede (sing,fem); feet: peidi (plu, fem)

While in English we have irregular plurals and some of the most irrational spellings:
tooth teeth
foot feet
eye (spelling!)
tongue (spelling!)
-etc





#42622 10/03/01 01:36 AM
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Kirky, I don't really know anything about your topic, but I would like to welcome you to the board. Glad to have you.


#42623 10/03/01 02:26 AM
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One example from French.

La vase (femenine)= mud
Le vase (masculine) = vase

Earlier, much earlier, a post mentioned the troubles that anglos have learning French because of the gender issue. To highlight the fact that English is not the only language that makes no sense at times, I cite the following two examples:

Le féminisme (masculine) and la masculinité (feminine).

On a slightly off-topic note: One thing that annoys me is how perfectly good words with inherent gender are being dropped from common usage. I keep hearing various women being refered to as actors yet they strive to win the academy award for best actress.


#42624 10/03/01 05:11 AM
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Welcome back Rouspeteur. You've been gone too long.

Bingley


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#42625 10/03/01 01:42 PM
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Cojer la guagua* (to be read in whichever dialect it means to catch the bus so as not to offend the sensibilities of the more delicate among us).

*No intent to incite or abet any illegal actions is implied nor should any be inferred.


#42626 10/03/01 02:06 PM
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It's not only actresses who have been demanding the right to have their profession called by the same word used by males, and receiving same from media who are less concerned about the language than about sucking up to the people who help them sell their papers, commercials, etc. These females, who would seem to trying to get people to ignore the fact that they are female, claim that it's demeaning to them to have a different word, or a different form of a word, applied to one sex/gender. This is not a linguistic issue, it's a matter of PC (political correctness), which is at the root of many horrible linguistic practices.


#42627 10/03/01 02:13 PM
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I don't think the Greek origin of words such as Andrea is the issue. There are Italian nouns ending in 'a', such as poeta = poet, which are masculine. I think it more likely that such words, especially when they denote a profession, are remnants of the Latin First Conjugation, where nouns of any gender end in 'a' in the masc. sing. nominative. One of the first sentences learned in Latin I is Marcus est agricola = Marcus is a farmer.


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