Ménage à 3 Universe Comics

Like Quag said, "Puta" is the same as in Brazil. "Puto" is the one that doesn't mean "male prostitute", instead it's roughly the same as saying "kiddo" (so I guess it retained the meaning from Roman times). I've never seen this male form being used as an insult, though.

I'm guessing the euphemism explanation makes the most sense.

edited 29th Aug '15 9:13:06 AM by JonnasN

In spanish puto means manwhore, asshole, and becomes an adjective to amplify insults as well, it can also mean faggot. If used in superlative (putisimo) it most likely means faggot.

Like: "Eres un puto idiota"/You are a fucking idiot.

edited 29th Aug '15 9:29:18 AM by vandro

I still find the similarities between the pronunciation of "putain" and "poutine" hilarious. Next time you're in French speaking territory, make sure you don't ask for the wrong one...

Uhm, there is little to no similarities in how they are pronounced...

Of course, the "putain" uses two vowel sounds that don't exist in English, so that may be the source of your confusion.

Edit: However, if you take the English spelling of Vladimir Putin's surname, and pronounce it the French way... Let's just say there's a reason his name is spelled "Poutine" in French.

edited 29th Aug '15 9:35:08 AM by Medinoc

I had gathered that "puta" was "bitch" or "whore", but the Central American immigrants who I worked with said it just meant "dog". They threw around "puta madre" with about the weight of George Carlin's penultimate Dirty Word.

It is how how words like "villain", "wench", and "hussy" got their pejorative meanings (originally meaning "village-dweller", "young girl", and "housewife" respectively).

IIRC, Vilain in French meant a peasant who's not a serf (he cultivates his own land).

Either they were trolling you or there is some double entendre going on in Central America.

Well, a bitch is a breeding female dog, I figured it might be that "puto/a" was just "dog" and "puta madre" was "bitch" by way of "mother-dog".

"puta madre" is more likely to be equivalent to "motherfucker" in intention, as far as I know, it is a contraction of "La puta madre que te parió" "The fucking whore who bore you".

So it would be more "son of a bitch", right?

"Hijo de puta" covers that.

New SDB. Somebody's practically executed a Face–Heel Turn by now.

... Nathan Horn? Wow, how subtle. And no, I think that Ruby is simply ignorant about the true nature of Nathan's personality, seeing as she doesn't know him at all.

We've known Nathan's surname for years. See the Ma3 Characters page.

And Ruby's moral lapse isn't enabling Nathan (though she does know of him as the guy who pulled the highly dubious Oprah/"on the down low" BS on Dillon); it's repeatedly trying to manipulate guys into acting out her Yaoi Fangirl fantasies - treating people as objects. Here, she's compounding that by pinching Dillon's phone and impersonating him (when truthfulness used to be her primary virtue), and by betraying Dillon's trust in her as an Honest Advisor.

Oh yeah, also — New Ma3 strip. The boy should have seen that coming.

We missed a strip on the 29th.

New Sandra... Eisu evidently has some free time again, and Dave throws in some realism.

... Bakers need to wake that early? When does the shop actually open?

Well, he has to prepare and cook a wide variety of breads, pastries, and cakes fresh every morning. He likely doesn't have the oven room to do everything at once, so he needs to stagger them out.

And I think bakeries tend to open at five or six for the breakfast crowd.

I didn't realize things had progressed that much with Pierre. Have we seen him since they had their first roll in the flour?

edited 2nd Sep '15 5:49:39 AM by TParadox

Don't think so.

She has mentioned him in the boyfriend or non-casually dating context, though.

Oh, she's made reference to having a boyfriend, but I thought that was more of a reasonable assumption after they realized they were both into each other.

Filler for Ma3 today. (Giz is heading to fanexpo, so we just get the B&W version of an upcoming poster.)

For once, I like this use of the classic Archie composition (which usually slightly irritates me, because I wasn't brought up on Archie comics, so I see it as a cliche without context). DiDi's bust looks a bit like luggage slung on the front, but there's some amusing characterisation going on here.

New Sandra. Life is complicated.

edited 3rd Sep '15 2:46:50 AM by Spindriver