Spanish folk speech

"de puta madre"

translation: of whore mother

ANALYSIS

This is a strange expression used in Spain to mean "very well." For example, one might ask "Que tal? (How are you?)" to which, if one were in a very good mood, one would answer "de puta madre!" with an emphasis on the "puta". I learned this expression from a Spanish dolly grip from Madrid (the man who pushes the dolly around) whose name was Jose Luis Gonzales, age 43, while working on a film in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The camera crew was from Spain, and they enjoyed teaching me Spanish expressions, especially the vulgar ones, since they seemed to get a kick out of hearing a foreigner speak in this colloquial way.

I was familiar with the Spanish fixation with the concept of the mother-whore and their use of the expression as an exclamation of anger. For example, if a Spaniard drops something, he might say things like, "la puta de su madre (literally, the whore of his mother)" or one might insult someone by saying "me cago en la puta de tu madre (I shit on the whore of your mother)" or, more simply, "la puta de tu madre (the whore of your mother)" It makes sense that calling a man's mother a whore is an insult, but this strange variant of using the expression as one of extreme satisfaction I didn't understand.

Then I came up with one possible psychoanalytic interpretation. I have not read much Freud, but from what I have heard, we desire both motherly and "whorely" qualities in a woman. When we insult someone and say their mother is a whore, it is one thing, but the idea of another woman who is both is actually a good thing. Thus, when a man says "de puta madre" to mean "very well" he is not specifying a specific other man's mother and calling her a whore but is rather idealizing the concept of a mother-whore in general.

Informant Data:

Myself, 22

Italian American Student

Italian, English, Spanish, French

Berkeley, California

November 23, 1997