{"id":615,"date":"2012-11-26T10:34:44","date_gmt":"2012-11-26T16:34:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/interfluency.com\/?p=615"},"modified":"2021-02-21T17:15:31","modified_gmt":"2021-02-21T23:15:31","slug":"machos-males-and-he-men","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/interfluency.com\/en\/2012\/11\/26\/machos-males-and-he-men\/","title":{"rendered":"Machos, males and he-men"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear reader,<\/p>\n

The recent, tragic death of seven-time champion boxer Héctor “Macho” Camacho has filled headlines around the world, and put on many tongues a word that was the nickname of the great prizefighter from Bayamón, Puerto Rico—and is a popular nickname throughout the Spanish-speaking world.<\/p>\n

The meaning of macho<\/em> in Spanish, biologically, is simply “male”. The Spanish and English words both derive from the Latin masculus.<\/em><\/p>\n

Héctor Luis Camacho Matías, El “Macho” Camacho, native of Bayamón, Puerto Rico and holder, at different times, of seven different championship belts.<\/p>\n

 <\/div>\n

Macho<\/em> is also widely used in the Spanish-speaking world as an appellative, as in “¿Cómo estás, macho?”<\/em>(“How are you, man?”).The term is also the main way to designate almost any male animal.  For instance:víbora macho<\/em> (male snake), ardilla macho<\/em> (male squirrel), gato macho <\/em>(male cat).  English is rich in equivalents. Besides the formal, biologically literal “male”, as in “male rabbit”, there is a wealth of folk terms like “jack rabbit”,  “tomcat”, “billy goat”. Other common terms for male: “buck” (deer, antelope, ferret, squirrel, etc.), “bull” (moose, hippopotamus, elephant, shark, seal), and “cock” (hawk, turkey, pheasant, indeed almost any bird).<\/p>\n

Curiously, the English word “macho”, taken directly from Spanish, means not simply male but rather hypermasculine, very virile or aggressive. “Macho man”, technically (but not actually) redundant, is also widely used; readers over 40 or 50 years old will recall the humorous title of The Village People’s 1978 song.  These uses, documented in English for at least a century and a half, have grown dramatically since the 1960s. Not to mention “machismo” to mean hypermasculinity or male chauvinism, appearing around 1970 (in Spanish it dates roughly to 1900).<\/p>\n

Given the word’s connotations in their language, many English speakers aren’t aware that Spanish macho<\/em> refers simply to the male gender, as when a baby boy is born and people say “Salió macho“<\/em>. That is, the word that in one language just means “male” is taken by members of another linguistic community to express an extreme version of masculinity.<\/p>\n

Interesting (though not necessarily a reason for Hispanic pride) that the English language owes this word to Spanish!<\/p>\n

¡Buenas palabras!<\/em><\/p>\n

Pablo<\/p>\n

Copyright ©2012 Pablo J. Davis. All Rights Reserved. This essay was originally written for the December 9, 2012 edition of La Prensa Latina<\/em> (Memphis, Tennessee), as part of the weekly bilingual column Mysteries & Enigmas of Translation\/Misterios y Enigmas de la Traducción.<\/p>\n

Pablo Julián Davis is an ATA (American Translators Association) Certified Translator, English>Spanish, and Certified by the Supreme Court as an Interpreter, English<>Spanish. He delivers world-class translation and interpreting, as well as inspiring and interactive cultural training, through his company Interfluency Translation+Culture<\/a>. He can be reached at pablo@interfluency.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear reader, The recent, tragic death of seven-time champion boxer Héctor “Macho” Camacho has filled headlines around the world, and put on many tongues a word that was the nickname of the great prizefighter from Bayamón, Puerto Rico—and is a popular nickname throughout the Spanish-speaking world. The meaning of macho in Spanish, biologically, is simply “male”. The Spanish and English words […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[93],"tags":[143,266,267,59,30,44,10,36,101,154,49,39,268,269,270,271,272,273,274,275,276,51,17,54,55,19,20,159],"class_list":{"0":"post-615","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-interflows-language-culture-blog","7":"tag-american","8":"tag-animal","9":"tag-camacho","10":"tag-cultura","11":"tag-culture","12":"tag-davis","13":"tag-english","14":"tag-hispanic","15":"tag-interfluency","16":"tag-languages","17":"tag-latin","18":"tag-latino","19":"tag-machisimo","20":"tag-macho","21":"tag-macho-camacho","22":"tag-macho-man","23":"tag-male","24":"tag-man","25":"tag-masculine","26":"tag-masculino","27":"tag-names","28":"tag-pablo","29":"tag-spanish","30":"tag-traduccion","31":"tag-traductor","32":"tag-translation","33":"tag-translator","34":"tag-us","35":"entry"},"yoast_head":"\nMachos, males and he-men - Interfluency<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/interfluency.com\/en\/2012\/11\/26\/machos-males-and-he-men\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Machos, males and he-men - Interfluency\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Dear reader, The recent, tragic death of seven-time champion boxer Héctor “Macho” Camacho has filled headlines around the world, and put on many tongues a word that was the nickname of the great prizefighter from Bayamón, Puerto Rico—and is a popular nickname throughout the Spanish-speaking world. 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