Macho

[Lynne Murphy]

--On Tuesday, February 12, 2002 7:50 pm +0100 Paul Frank <paulfrank at WANADOO.FR> wrote:

>> One can say "Lencho es muy macho" (Larry is very macho)
>> but not "*Lenchita es muy hembra" (*Lynne is very female)
>>
>> This is largely a guess.  One should consult a native speaker rather than
> my
>> Sprachgefühl on this item.
>> DMLance
>
> My native Spanish Sprachgefühl says that both "muy macha" and "muy hembra"
> are possible, but they don't mean the same thing. Muy hembra means very
> sexy or feminine, whereas muy macha means very butch or very strong. In
> German - not that anybody asked - muy hembra would be "sehr weiblich" and
> muy macha "sehr männlich."


Well, people have been translating 'macho' and 'hembra' here as 'male' and 'female', but they're clearly more like 'masculine' and 'feminine' (with culturally relative interpretations of those meanings).

Lynne


Dr M Lynne Murphy
Lecturer in Linguistics
Acting Director, MA in Applied Linguistics
School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

phone +44-(0)1273-678844
fax   +44-(0)1273-671320