The Art of Rationalization

or I watch telenovelas to improve my Spanish... ¡en serio!
Part Two

Last time we met la madrastra, el padrastro and all the little -astros. This time we'll take a closer look at the -astro ending, itself. According to A New Reference Grammar (1), this is one of a handful of pejorative suffixes (including -aco, -arraco, -acho, -uco, -ucho and -ejo) that take an inoffensive word and turn it into an insult. A casa, for example, may or may not be a home; but a casucha is no place you'd want to live. And I doubt you'd choose to stay in a hotelucho.

la casa: house
la casucha: pathetic little house
el hotel: hotel
el hotelucho: dingy hotel
el poeta: poet
el poetastro: poetaster

Poetaster? The American Heritage Dictionary (2) defines this as: a writer of insignigicant, meretricious, or shoddy poetry [New Latin poetaster: Latin poeta + Latin -aster, pejorative suffix].

In contrast, the prefix step-, as in stepmother, [from Old English steop-] is defined simply as "related by means of remarriage rather than by blood."

Now as any speaker of modern English can attest, step- has acquired its own negative baggage, not surprising given the complicated real world relationship it represents. It can be shorthand for describing dysfunctional relationships outside of the family as well. But when we use the term metaphorically, we'll usually talk about feeling like the neglected stepchild, or not wanting to play the part of the wicked stepmother.

Let's take another look at madrastra. Madre + -astra. Not likely to be a term of endearment.
In fact it has the 'wicked' part of the 'wicked stepmother' built right in. And even though my usually reliable HarperCollins Diccionario (3) defines madrastra as simply 'stepmother' and the online dictionary wordreference.com (4) concurs, here's what the Real Academia Española (5) has to say:

madrastra. Del despectivo de madre.
1. f. Mujer del padre respecto
de los hijos llevados por este al matrimonio.
2. (poco usada) Cosa que
incomoda o daña.

So the Royal Academy recognizes that the word is derived from a term of disparagement, although it is defined simply as 'stepmother.' It also cites a secondary, uncommon extension of usage: A thing which causes unease or which harms.

How does this play out in the real world? When I was in Mexico several months ago, I used the word madrastra to refer to the new wife of a friend's widowed father and she corrected me. We usually say madre postiza, she explained. Madrastra sounded harsh and negative to her ear. Madre postiza was a lot nicer, a lot more polite.

(Of course to my Anglo ear, postiza (false, artificial) doesn't sound all that great. It's the same word used to describe dentures (dentadura postiza); and used by itself as a noun, postizo means hairpiece. Go figure.)

So here I am nearly five years later and I finally get it. (¡Ya me cayó el veinte!) Poor Maria's story was called La Madrastra not just to describe her relationship to her hijastros but to show how much she was disparaged and despised. Me parte el alma sólo al pensar en eso. (Although as we were to learn in los últimos capítulos, she was La Verdadera Madre y no La Madrastra. But that, my friends, is a topic for another day!)

Resources mentioned above:
1. Butt, J. & Benjamin, C., A New Reference Grammar of Modern Spanish, 4th ed. McGraw-Hill 2004. This isn't a textbook and isn't likely to help you very much if you are a beginner. But if you are an intermediate level student, this book is definitely your friend!
2. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed. Houghton Mifflin 2000. This dictionary is the amateur etymologist's dream. It is the thorough and expert treatment of word origins that makes this dictionary stand out in a crowd.
3. HarperCollins Spanish Unabridged Dictionary. I have the 8th edition. published in 2005, but there are several earlier editions and a few more recent ones around. Just try looking up one of the 'super' verbs like echar, read the two and a half columns of entries and examples, and you'll understand why I like this book so much. Sadly, there is absolutely no information on word origins included.
4. http://www.wordreference.com/. As great as this site is, just remember it doesn't have everything. But it is an amazing resource, especially when you are reading something online.
5. www.rae.es/rae.html. This is the website of the Diccionario of the Real Academia Española. You can also access this site through wordreference.com.