What is the difference between 10 pesos and 10 pesos? Do 10 pesos have more purchasing power than 10 pesos? What is the difference between asking for a favor and asking for a little favor? The law of uses and customs makes in Mexico the use of diminutives was used beyond pointing out something small or as a sign of affection. Diminutives are also sarcasm; In order for little friend or little friend not to sound like disdain, there must be values understood between the person who says it and the person who is said to. The same happens with compañerito or compañerita, and with many other expressions.
The use of diminutives It is recurring in sidewalk marketing, the one in which we are all friends, “what are you going to take, friend”, “what are you taking, friend”; Those of us who are older have children everywhere, “what do we offer you, mother”, “thank you for the purchase, mother” and we are all Güeritas, “pass it on Güerita”. There what you buy with 100 pesos is nothing compared to what 100 pesos get.
On some occasion I shared here that I am not very affected by the excessive use of diminutives, I understand that it is part of our speech but there comes a point where it causes confusion and I end up getting fed up with so many questions in the effort to achieve a little more precision.
Where it happens to me the most is with cooking recipes. Pretend that they told me “In a frying pan you are going to put a little oil, you are going to finely chop a little onion and two cloves of garlic, then you chop a little tomato, add it and add a little bit of salt and a little bit of pepper…” And as they The neuron that inhabits solitary in my brain listens to it. It becomes more entangled than a ball of yarn in the paws of a cat.
Questions like Aceitito? How much, one, two tablespoons, or will it be teaspoons? About how much will it be a little onion and a little tomato? The cloves of garlic, it’s easy, they are two small cloves, understand what I mean by small. Little salt, it sounds like a pinch to me… but… if little salt is a pinch, little pepper, how much is it? And if I ask him? Perhaps it is interpreted as if I were mocking, when in reality it is not clear to me. What a dilemma!
say those who know that the excessive use of diminutives in our country has to do with the way in which Spanish and Nahuatl coexisted at the beginning, because in Nahuatl the use of diminutives was common. Now, here among us, is the difference between 100 pesos and 100 pesitos clear to you? or between a favor and a little favor.
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