Talk:macho

Absurdities in the article Macho in Spanish

A week ago, while editing this article to include the Nāhuatl version of the word "Macho", I encountered a series of problems. Both my editions for Nāhuatl and Spanish were reverted by one user at the request of another. Inspite of my explanations for the corrections I made in the edit summary of the word "Macho" in English and to both users, not only I was unjustly accused of writing nonsense but was also blocked for one day. Surely, because they were worried (scared) by mi editions. I was even requested not to "(...) remove what's already there". And, since I was already blocked, I could not complain or to explain anything to somebody in the Wiktionary. I was accused, judged and found guilty without being granted a hearing in which to defend myself!

Now, of course, I am not sorry to insist! I understand those worries, but not the reproachful conduct used against me, because does not solve the problem of doing wrong assertions concerning the word "Macho" in Spanish. Therefore, I cannot desist! I hope the following explanations clarify matters:

1. I speak vernacular Spanish from Mexico and the two mentioned users are not native Spanish speakers (neither am I in strict sense!)

2. In Spanish there are two (2) meanings for "Macho", one coming from the Latin word "mascŭlus" ("male" in English) and the other coming from the Latin word "marcŭlus" ("hammer" in English.)

3. "Macha" is not the feminine of "macho" as in "female" and "male", respectively. As I mentioned before, the corresponding feminine adjective to "macho" (in Spanish) is "marimacho", not "macha". Of course unlearned people think that "macha" is the feminine of "macho". One user, trying to probe a point, even wrote to me that he found the word "macha" as a a femenine adjective of "macho" in an Internet search engine.

There are (unfortunate) cases when the wrongful use of words by the majority causes the schollars of the "Academia de la Lengua Española" to include a "barbarism" in the Spanish Dictionary, as is the relative recent case of the "galicism" agilizar (instead of using the proper vernacular agilitar.) That is pitiful! Also there are words in Spanish that cannot have a feminine adjective like the word "presidente" ("president" in English") or "testigo" ("witness" in English), since there are not a "presidenta" or "testiga"!, etc. (And I do not doubt that you will find in an Internet search engine those words! But that do not make them right! It just show how somebody does not know his/her own language!). Please, have a look at http://www.instalaches.com/2009/03/12/%C2%BFpresidente-o-presidenta/.

4. "Macha" is a kind of mollusc. In the case of this word in Spanish there is only the feminine gender. There are not masculine gender for this word neither in singular nor in plural.

5. In the case of the verb "machar", on one hand, it has nothing to do with the word "macho" (mascŭlus) and, on the other hand, is (only) related to the word "macho" (marcŭlus.)

6. It will also be necessary to eliminate the references of the verb "machar" in both the articles concerning the words "macho" (mascŭlus) and "macha" and keep the one related to "macho" (marcŭlus.)

7. Let's not be redundant. Since in the English version of the Wiktionary there are one article for each of both words "Macha" and "Machar", it is necessary to make the corresponding corrections, eliminating the references to the word "macho" originating from the Latin "mascŭlus". I will take care, if necessary, of the corresponding versions in other languages that I speak.

8. We still need to include the meaning of "Macho" in Nāhuatl.

9. Lets not invent words in foreign languages!

10. Lets make things easier for all of us instead of complicating each other contributions.

11. Keep in mind that we are doing this in order to have a better Wiktionary, sharing all our knowledges and that, sometimes, someone else's knowledge is better than ours! And this and all of the above is not nonsense!

12. Finally, mine is not a case of *Academic Standards Disease. I hope that I did not contributed more to your confussion! And I will let you sort this out!

Sincerely: --Estaurofila 23:43, 20 September 2010 (UTC)