BBC excerpt

[Wilson Gray]

"La nina" means nothing in Spanish and, in the context of meteorology,
neither does "la niña," unless Spanish-speaking _meteorólogos_ have
borrowed the "opposite of _el niño_" meaning from English.

-Wilson

On Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 10:24 PM, Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at ix.netcom.com> wrote:
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>  Poster:       Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM>
>  Subject:      Re: BBC excerpt
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>
>  I, too, missed that. I agree it looks odd now that you mention it.
>
>  I think I assumed the "child" part came from "the Christ child" for el
>  nino and the "girl" part was just indicating the feminine ending.
>  Perhaps carelessness on the part of the writer.
>
>  Wikipedia says that la nina means "the little girl." Is that because
>  "nina" refers only to girls of a young age? BB
>
>
>
>  On Apr 4, 2008, at 7:09 PM, Douglas G. Wilson wrote:
>
>  > Sure. I do not find anything very remarkable about the existence of
>  > the
>  > term "la niña", nor about the sloppy omission of its diacritical mark.
>  >
>  > Is "child girl" a good English translation of "niña"? Is "child
>  > girl" a
>  > usual expression in any sense in English? Maybe in some dialect? Is
>  > it a
>  > typo ... supposed to read "child (girl)" or "child/girl" or so, maybe?
>  > Is the BBC writer unfamiliar with English?
>  >
>  > This expression is what looks remarkable to me.
>  >
>  > -- Doug Wilson
>  >
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