I lived in Spain and have to agree with what Nava says. In Spain, using the article before someone’s name is not pejorative at all. It’s more of a way of expressing affectionate familiarity toward a third person in a conversation. For instance, when my Spanish roommate was talking to another friend over the phone about who was coming to a party, she said she was bringing, “El Hector, la Raquel, y la Pyper.”
I thought, “All right, I’m la Pyper! I’ve been accepted!”
But it is a lower class thing. Well educated people would not generally do it.
OUCH !!!
I know you were talking about Spain but the group of Italians I mentioned earlier included 2 lawyers, an architect, a children’s doctor … I imagine they must have had some sort of further education … I’d be interested to know your definition of “class” and if it really relates directly to the level of education someone has.
Anyway, the same Italians were all familiar to a greater or lesser extent with the local dialect which may have influenced their “standard” Italian.
I am talking in Spanish and in Spain and in conversation. The article may sometimes be used also in conversation or news headers to refer to a famous person. But if you hear someone in Spain routinely referring to their relative or friend as “la María” you can be quite certain it isn’t higher class people. Of course, there are exceptions like when done exceptionally for special effect, etc. But the rule stands. If you are learning Spanish it is best to refrain from doing it until you are very familiar with the language.
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This I accept, and said as much in my reply.
I’m not arguing with your knowledge, I objected to your terminology - in my neck of the woods “Lower class” is pejorative (whereas “working class” is not) - and previous equation of “class” with level of education. NOw I accept that perhaps you meant education in terms of upbringing and etiquette but I read it as academic achievement - and found it insulting.
Bolding mine - this is a useful guideline and I certainly agree, but you mentioned no such rule earlier. As I read it, and this was my personal interpretation, you simply labelled Pyper’s roommate as ill-educated and lower class.
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I am sorry if I can’t keep up with the latest PC conventions but I have better things to do. To me “lower class” is an objective descriptor which is in no way pejorative. I do not accept the notion that “working class” equals “lower class” as the first is only a subgroup of the last. Many lower class people would wish to be working.
So what is it now? Everybody is supposed to be “upper class” just that some are more “upper” than others? Lower class is a perfectly valid descriptor for me.
The problem with saying ‘lower class’, at least in this thread, is that I don’t really know what it means. I’ve found this thread quite interesting, about this practice of adding the article before a name in some sections of Spanish society, but I’m not sure which sections. I’ve been given the impression it’s the sort of thing you might hear in say, a rustic farming community in the country, but I’m not sure.
So what do you mean by ‘lower class’? Anyone uneducated? Anyone who’s poor? Would farmers use it? Would street gangs in cities use it? I’m not just talking about the etiquette of what the phrase means, I’m genuinely interested in who adopts the practice in Spain. Similarly, I don’t really know what you mean by upper class - here in Britain ‘upper class’ usually means royalty or aristocracy, to the exclusion of the middle class.
Sailor certainly seems to have a “thing” about proper speech. In this thread he objects to Americans referring to their father as “my dad” and to their children as “my kids.”
My roommate, by the way, was from Sevilla. It did seem to me when I lived in Spain that people who spoke standard Castellano did look down on southern Spaniards who all have varying regional accents and dialects. The media tended to make fun of those with southern accents the way that American media sometimes pokes fun at American Southerners. I think it’s possible that sailor is expressing some cultural bias here.
I was not the one to use the term “lower class” but I have most often seen it to mean blue collar and below. It refers mostly to economic standing but it also includes an angle of education, ethnic/regional discrimination and others. I guess the new rich could be very rich and still low class.
I lived in Spain for a while about 20 years ago. At least at that time, class was much more of an issue than it was in the US. I don’t think you can generalize the concept of class from country to country. I think the people I knew in Spain (who ranged pretty much throughout the socioeconomic spectrum from those with wealth and titles to working class) would take sailor’s statement at face value. Class distinctions were a part of society there in a way that Americans at least try to pretend they aren’t.
On the actual topic, I agree that the article is used affectionately. Although it’s not a part of upper class speech patterns, upper class people used it ironically or for effect. They would use it to refer to prominent people from humble origins, like a flamenco dancer, or just to sound country, like GWB’s Texas accent, although he is the Yale-educated son of a president.
If I were to make an analogy to American English, it might be to those stereotypical Southern double names, like Peggie Sue. In upper crust circles she would probably be called Margaret, but someone might call her Peggie Sue as an affectionate joke.
In Argentina using articles before names is considered rustic. However, I am from Tucumán (North Western Argentina) and we usually speak that way.
My father is a Porteño (born in Buenos Aires) and always corrected us as kids.
Not only we employ articles before names. This is considered correct in Tucumán “El papa te llamó”
:eek: Interesting. Keep that in mind for my next thread about articles around family titles. That’s another issue that I will want to discuss.
In Mexico in the central region (say, Guanajuato, Jalisco, Queretaro), no one would use an article for a name under almost any circumstance. Go to the the northeast (Sonora in this case), and it’s quite common amongst the higher middle class (I don’t personally know any lower-than-middle-class Mexicans other than servants, but must imagine such use is common with them, as well). Unfortunately all of the upper-crust I know is in the first region I mentioned (don’t use articles with names), and the “upper-crust” I know in Sonora were narcos, and money != class, but they used articles too. In effect, I’m not sure if it’s class-based or not, but it is certainly regional within Mexico. And of course, Mexico is only a small region in the greater Spanish-speaking world.
It must vary according to region. Haven’t noticed it so much - if at all - in the Dominican Republic and other Spanish-speaking Caribbean countries but have done in Gibraltar/southern Spain. I think it is considered less educated, yes. In my experience some South Americans from the Andean region especially use it a lot when referring to friends and family members.
Anybody who speaks who speaks Spanish is familiar with “el coño de la Bernarda”. I think the article before the woman’s name serves a purpose there and it is not to dignify her.
Indeed.