This mother's day, call mom - but don't call her this!

When we spent a year in South America with our two young daughters, we quickly learned how important the accented letter is in Spanish.  While Mamá is the word for mother, mama (without the accent) is the word for breast. 

Papá can be translated as 'dad', but la papa is a potato and el papa is the Pope. 

So, for the first week of our adventure, I was a boob and my husband was the Pope.

-- Jacqueline M., Colorado USA

Perhaps this is the true origin behind the macho society so prevalent in Latin cultures...! UYB

Comments

[Francesca Maggi]

In Italian, we have mamma & mammà (uber-mom) but for il papà to change to the Pope, it becomes La Papa (no jokes, please).
But pappa (and none of us can ever get the dual consonants), is baby food.

Which might explain why so many Italian dads are treated like milque-toast (!)

F.Maggi
http://burntbythetuscansun.blogspot.com