El masculino despectivo o desmerecedor

Abstract

The demeaning or derogatory masculine ―a hardly studied phenomenon of Spanish nominal morphology― is formed by adding a final -o to bases (often feminine) ending in any other vowel (which is omitted) or in a consonant. In its basic use, it serves to disparagingly allude to a referent (in a similar way as a derogatory suffix does), but it can also be used to deny with irony and emphasis, to create or reinforce insults, and even to confer a wink of relaxed complicity between the interlocutors on a statement. There are very generalized lexicalizations (coso “thing”, palabro “word”…) and numerous cases in the process of lexicalization, but the phenomenon, in its essence, is genuinely occasional and characteristic of colloquial speech, so it does not usually leave a mark in written records. Even so, the demeaning masculine has been recorded in the works of some of the best Spanish writers from the Golden Age up to now, and does not show any obsolescence (as it can now be detected with relative ease in forums, blogs, tweets …), although, in its maximum vitality and extension, as far as we know so far, the unworthy masculine manifests itself mainly in two areas: Sayago, in Zamora (and, to a lesser degree, in the entire territory corresponding to the so-called central Leon), and the Serranía de Cuenca (and, with less vigour, throughout the province of Cuenca and in the extension of its natural regions). The geographical and “linguistic” distance between these two areas, the abundant lexicalization processes, and the appearance of cases in speakers of the most varied origins allow us to conjecture that in the past this phenomenon would have been quite widespread.