Veep

[Michael Newman]

There's a common misconception that probably has its origin in elementary Spanish classes that any noun ending in -a is feminine. In fact, -ista words are usually not inherently marked for gender. A man can be un comunista and a woman can be una comunista. There are also a lot of other words that are grammatically masculine but end in -a, such as programa.  There are fewer -o words that are feminine, the most famous being "la mano," but there are also clippings like la moto (cicleta), and a few others. But the -o is a better gender indicator than -a. 





Michael Newman
Associate Professor of Linguistics
Queens College/CUNY
michael.newman at qc.cuny.edu



On May 4, 2012, at 5:04 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: Veep
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> At 5/4/2012 08:47 AM, you wrote:
>> "A photo op with the normals and normalistas." (The common folk; is
>> "normalista" to be taken as a feminine form? Or as an enthusiast of
>> normals?)
> 

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