mata means to kill in spanish and portugese. your playing around here with word tenses. and matar does in no way mean murder. it does mean to kill, or to slay. mata is not an acceptable word usuage in spanish with respect to the process of killing or slaying - it is however in common usage. In both languages it is considered a slang term when used alone. it can mean murderer or assasine when used as a noun - i.e. matador. now i have no idea where you are coming from in your claims that mata has anything to do with plants. i suspect many portions of the old spanish empire may have mutated their language usage where mata has some reference to plants - but i doubt it. I think what you are doing here is confusing spanish with portuguese. In portuguese mata can in fact refer to a forest, woods or a jungle area. and in association with other common terms can mean various things. i.e. mata + borrao = paper blotters, rato(s) derived from rat = arsenic, virgem = virgin or primeval forest. I think thats where your confusing your spanish definition of mata that it has some association with plants. don't forget that portuguese was originally a military language developed and derived from spanish and much of the word and sentence structure is intentionally confusing. the meaning of a word structure and the associated definitions are not defined in the words but in the sentence structure and sometimes like chinese in the inflection used by the speaker. regards joe On Thu, 20 Sep 2001, Jim Choate wrote:
On Wed, 19 Sep 2001, Xeni Jardin wrote:
FWIW, "MATA" in Spanish means "kill."
'mata' means a plant (also 'planta') or a shrub (also 'arbusto').
'(to) kill (or murder)' is 'matar'.
as in,
No matars....Though shall not kill (or murder...depends on how one translates the original scripts).
Matar el tiempo....To kill time.
Me ha matado con su pelmaceria....He's so dull he bores me to death.
Vaya con dios mi amigo....Go with God my friend.
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