ama de casa as masculine
Why is it that "ama de casa" means housewife, but it is considered as masculine form? Estoy muy confundida.
2 Answers
"Ama de casa" is femenine, but it uses "el" because of a anti-cocophony rule about femenine nouns starting with a stressed "A" ("el agua", "el águila").
Also, if that role is taken by a man, according to the Diccionario panhispánico de dudas: "Nada impide que, si es un hombre quien desempeña estas labores [de ama de casa], se emplee el masculino amo (amo de casa, amo de llaves)" http://lema.rae.es/dpd/?key=amo
Well in our modern day world, "he" could very well be a "she"...Ok bad joke, ahem. Sorry.
There are some cases for "phonetic reasons", the feminine noun will take the "el" (masculine) article if the accent is on the first "a" sound.
Consider if hypothetically it was 'la ama'. In Spanish, when a vowel that is the last letter of a word is the same vowel that is the first letter of the following word, they are combined into one sound.
Therefore 'la ama' would sound like 'lama'. So take your choice, man or lama. lol.
If it is plural, "las" is used because you would no longer have the double "a" thing happening.
Additionaly, if the woman of the house was indeed a man, you would say "amo de la casa".
Consider the following examples:
el ama / las amas
el agua / las aguas
el habla / las hablas
el arca (the ark)
el hambre (hunger)
el hampa (the underworld)
el arpa (the harp)
el águila (the eagle)
