# Please tell me this Spanish translation is wrong **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 2, 2004, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-this-spanish-translation-is-wrong/222275 "2004-01-02T13:52:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2004, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-this-spanish-translation-is-wrong/222275/1 "2004-01-02T13:52:01Z")
My son went to spend a few days with Grandpa. Grandpa makes a few extra bucks working with a septic tank company, digging ditches and installing tanks and doing estimates. Some of the fellows on his crew are Hispanics. My son went with Grandpa to work to earn some money and brush up on his Spanish. He learned, among other things, that he accidentally referred to his Grandpa as Grandma (_abuela_ instead of _abuelo_). I remember very little of my high school and college Spanish, and of course, they don’t teach you the curse words. So when one of the workers uttered “Punta” and my son asked him what that meant, the man hemmed and hawed and wouldn’t answer. Ivylad told him it was a crude word for a vagina. (Use your imagination) 😉 Now, in the course of discussing this with my son, he asked if there was a town if Florida called [this](http://www.ci.punta-gorda.fl.us/). Ivylad confirmed it, and Ivyboy said that Gorda means “fat.” So does this town’s name mean what I think it means? And do Spanish-speaking citizens in Florida get a secret giggle out of what we named one of our towns? :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Neurotik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/91b2a8/32.png) [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2004, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-this-spanish-translation-is-wrong/222275/2 "2004-01-02T13:55:59Z")
Punta means tip or point in other Spanish. But it is also slang for male genitalia. So no, the town’s name is undoubtedly means fat point or fat tip. ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2004, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-this-spanish-translation-is-wrong/222275/3 "2004-01-02T13:59:17Z")
Okay, so Ivylad was wrong. If it refers to male genitalia, shouldn’t it be _punto_? ---
**Author:** ![chestnutmare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d6d6ee/32.png) [@chestnutmare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chestnutmare)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2004, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-this-spanish-translation-is-wrong/222275/4 "2004-01-02T14:22:20Z")
puta is bitch or whore in most spanish speaking countries. Maybe that is what he heard? ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2004, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-this-spanish-translation-is-wrong/222275/5 "2004-01-02T14:35:16Z")
He thought it was _bunta_ at first, but for some reason, _punta_ sounded familiar. ---
**Author:** ![Neurotik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/91b2a8/32.png) [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2004, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-this-spanish-translation-is-wrong/222275/6 "2004-01-02T14:36:12Z")
No, I made the mistake when I was reading, **ivylass**. I didn’t read your post carefully when you said they told him it was slang for vagina. And I just guessed at what punta would be slang for. **chestnutmare** is correct - they were saying puta, not punta. ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2004, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-this-spanish-translation-is-wrong/222275/7 "2004-01-02T16:51:34Z")
No, they wouldn’t tell him what the word meant. Ivylad is the one who told our son it was slang for vagina. ---
**Author:** ![ice1000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/a3d4f5/32.png) [@ice1000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ice1000)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2004, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-this-spanish-translation-is-wrong/222275/8 "2004-01-02T20:56:29Z")
In what context did he say it? Sometimes puta is the english equivalent for damn (or f\*!k) when something goes wrong, something breaks, etc. In Nicragua I think, the term is puta madre, but it doesn’t have that bad of a connotation, it is more like damn. Like chestnutmare stated, it is also the slang for whore but when used as an insult, it is usually yelled or stated much more emphatically…never muttered…unless you’re losing an argument (and then under your breath)… 🙂 This is the case for Cuban, Puerto Rican & Dominican slang. It may be different in other latinamerican cultures. ---
**Author:** ![monica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a183cd/32.png) [@monica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monica)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2004, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-this-spanish-translation-is-wrong/222275/9 "2004-01-02T21:16:28Z")
I’m more knowledgable of the culture of Spain, as opposed to the American hispanic cultures, but in Spain, puta means whore or bitch. I would assume that that was what he heard. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Matrix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/34f0e0/32.png) [@Red\_Matrix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Matrix)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2004, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-this-spanish-translation-is-wrong/222275/10 "2004-01-02T21:40:28Z")
In my Mexican influenced culture, spanish adopts english words. Some of us who never SCHOLASTICALLY learned spanish, tend to add an “N” in words to make it their own. You can always add “ita” or “issimo” to a word and it is valid, so adding the “n” in the middle of a word wasn’t a big deal to us kids. For example:_mucho_ becomes _muncho_ (much) _carcel_ becomes _carcen_…etc. (jail) As for negative slang… _Puta_ = Slut or whore, depending on how u use it. That man probably put an “N” in it on purpose. _Verga_ = dick _Panocha, La Jolla_ = both mean pussy in slang, but have real meanings too (big tortilla, Jewelry, respectively) _culo_ = ass hole **ivylass** , not all spanish words follow the gender rules. It get complicated if you study it… so just learn the exceptions. I took spanish in high school cuz i thought it would be a breezer course… but no, i had to learn how to spell, accent and conjugate. So, if you look at the spanish word for dick, _verga_, it looks feminine in nature, but it’s not. Hey, i just realized, VIAGRA looks similar to this word… hm… Something I learned in HS… LA RADIO was different from EL RADIO. “La” refered to the broadcast, “El” refered to the box. ---
**Author:** ![flood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@flood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flood)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2004, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-this-spanish-translation-is-wrong/222275/11 "2004-01-03T13:15:01Z")
Being Hispanic, living in South TX (and right on the border with Mexico) I can tell you that **Red Matrix** is right on. What your son heard was probably “puta”. ---
**Author:** ![flood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@flood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flood)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2004, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-this-spanish-translation-is-wrong/222275/12 "2004-01-03T13:31:42Z")
My bad, I hadn’t noticed your location **Red Matrix**. We’re rather close to each other, no? ---
**Author:** ![Grousser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9d8465/32.png) [@Grousser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grousser)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2004, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-this-spanish-translation-is-wrong/222275/13 "2004-01-03T21:01:08Z")
“Punta Gorda” means, as a town, “Fat Tip”, I think of it as a peninsular area wider than normal. But in the mexican slang, if you say “Punta Gorda” the first thing that came to “our” mind is a big and fat dick head. Sorry, but mexicans are that way. ---
**Author:** ![Rodrigo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Rodrigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodrigo)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2004, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-this-spanish-translation-is-wrong/222275/14 "2004-01-04T07:25:24Z")
Punta Gordpa could mean Fat Point (in the geographical sense of point), like Punta Sal in Perú Punta del Este in Uruguay. * * * It was definitely “puta”. In Peru we curse with “puta madre” or even “ta madre”.