Latin perfects and Fluent Etruscan in 30 days

[pagos at bigfoot.com]

At 10.13 29/06/99 -0500, Rick Mc Callister wrote:

>Mi suegro es agricultor en Costa Rica y llama "hijos" los retoños
>Vástago, para mí, es la talla de cualquier planta en
>cualquier etapa de crecimiento.

Muy estimados Señores y Amigos!

With all respect, I have to inform you that the following dictionary may
prove helpful in your postings:

Guenther Haensch - Gisela Haberkamp de Anto'n: Woerterbuch der
Landwirtschaft (Dictionary of Agriculture; Dictionnaire Agricole;
Diccionario de Agricultura; Dizionario di Agricoltura;
Sel6skoxoziajstvennyij slovar6). BLV Verlagsgesellschaft. Muenchen - Wien -
Zuerich, 1987.

It contains all the specific agricultural technical terms you might ever
need in German, English, French, Spanish, Italian and Russian. No need to
cite more knowledgeable informants, i.e. your father-in-law, the very
father of your own sons aut similia.

In Spanish you talk of _planta madre_, exactly as in English you say
"parent plant", "mother plant", "stock plant" (German "Mutterpflanze",
French "plante m`ere" or "pied m`ere", etc.). Yet I never ran across a
_[planta] hija_ (f.) in Spanish.

If you really happened to hear the word "hijo", it might be due -- IMHO --
to an improper usage and/or a rare "modismo hispanoamericano".

Cheers

       Paolo Agostini