Spanish Language Help

[+ Avalon]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calendula

 

The Spanish word for the Marigold flower is Calendula.

 

If one wanted to call a pretty young man after the flower would it be

 

El Calendula?

 

El Calendulo?

 

Other?

[liubit]

Strange question, @Avalon: I wouldn’t call anybody “caléndula”, whether male or female. But, to humor you, I would say “el caléndula”, using the masculine form of the article (el) even if the noun caléndula is feminine, to mark that I am referring to a man. I would not put a masculine ending to the noun, turning it into the non-existing “caléndulo” unless I wanted to mock the man it refers to. Do I make sense?

[+ Avalon]

Strange question, @Avalon: I wouldn’t call anybody “caléndula”, whether male or female. But, to humor you, I would say “el caléndula”, using the masculine form of the article (el) even if the noun caléndula is feminine, to mark that I am referring to a man. I would not put a masculine ending to the noun, turning it into the non-existing “caléndulo” unless I wanted to mock the man it refers to. Do I make sense?

 

Gracias. I know some words have both an "o" and an "a". Like naranjo is an orange tree and naranja is the orange fruit.

 

I thought maybe, hoping that there was something similar for calendula,

Edited October 25, 2018 by Avalon

[Epigonos]

Liubit nailed it. In Spanish "most words" ending in "o" are masculine and require the masculine definite article el, while "most words" ending in "a" are feminine and require the feminine definite article la. Words ending in "e" for example simply use the definite article to correspond with the sex of the individual thus; el jefe or la jefe, (the chief el male or la female) Spanish plays with words more than we do in English thus if one were to use la jefa the translation would likely be a "ball bustin bitch". In the case of the word presidente the article el traditionally indicated a male president and the article la traditionally indicated a female president. In recent years as the fem movement has gained influence in the Spanish speaking world we are seeing La Presidenta used more and more -- silly really.

The way Spanish plays with words in fascinating and fun. In English we tend to use vocal inflection to indicate what we mean - this can and does become a problem when we write in English. Spanish is much more likely to make its meaning clear in both spoken and written language

Edited October 26, 2018 by Epigonos

[liubit]

Thanks, @Epigonos, for the extensive explanation. Just for trivia, I will add that the ONLY current Spanish word ending in O which is of the feminine gender is MANO (hand): all the others are masculine.

[+ Avalon]

Thanks, @Epigonos, for the extensive explanation. Just for trivia, I will add that the ONLY current Spanish word ending in O which is of the feminine gender is MANO (hand): all the others are masculine.

 

That's because in Latin MANUS is not second declension masculine but fourth declension feminine.

[+ Avalon]

I find it interesting that milk in Spanish - la leche - is feminine while in French - le lait - it is masculine.

[liubit]

And in Czech, milk is neuter: mléko.