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Joined: Dec 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
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)
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Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 2,636
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 2,636 |
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].
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Joined: Oct 2001
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stranger
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stranger
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 4 |
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?
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Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 4
stranger
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stranger
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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
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
Kirky, I don't really know anything about your topic, but I would like to welcome you to the board. Glad to have you.
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 163
member
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member
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 163 |
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.
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065 |
Welcome back Rouspeteur. You've been gone too long.
Bingley
Bingley
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
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.
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289 |
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.
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289 |
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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