Problem with professors, azafato

[sina]

Ok, I'm studying spanish in university and today we had a little problem in our class. one of our professores insists that Their is no AZAFATO in spanish, and they use the word Assistante for a male air steward, but there is the other professor that disagrees with her.
and another thing, dose spanish people use caro ( expensive ) for both feminine and musculine words or they use cara instead? our professors have problems with this tambien!

[sosia]

difficult answer
AZAFATO it's not an official spanish word, but it's OK to use it, it will be widely understand as male stewardess.
Reason:
it's not in the RAE (Real Academia española) official dicctionary. Look here (azafato)
AZAFATA it's an official spanish word. Look here (azafata)

But in the RAE panhispánico (also a dictionary from the RAE, a doubt reference) it's given a quote when looking for azafata, and saying it's Ok to use. Look here azafata panhispánico
So at the moment it's not an complete official word, but it's widely aknowledged, it's OK to use it and soon will be in the diccionary
Info about the word's origin in wikipedia azafata

Azafata can also be a hostess, so now the air hostess or stewardess (both genres) are called "auxiliar de vuelo", " TCP (Tripulante de Cabina de Pasajeros)" or "asistente de vuelo". Other countries says "areomozo/a"

Caro/cara
Los zapatos son caros. El bolso es muy caro.
La vivienda está muy cara. En Suiza la vida es más cara.
¿Que falda compraste? ¿Cual va a ser? La más cara

Saludos And welcome to the forums.

[Elaina]

Hola Sina........

I am sure your professors are:
1. from different parts of Latin America OR
2. learned Spanish in different parts of Latin America

La palabra Azafata/Azafato was probably more widely used in years gone by. Nowadays (here in the US anyways), it might have been due to the unions or something/someone, they changed the name from Stewardess/Steward to 'Flight Attendant' so then it was no longer proper to say Azafata/Azafato when referring to a Flight Attendant.........porque ahora se traduce a Asistente de Vuelo. Todo tiene que ver con SEMANTICS.

Hace muchos años los sordo mudos se decian (deaf-mute) ahora son hearing impaired. Solo un ejemplo. Tambien hace unos años hubo una revolución de palabras que muchas cosas cambiaron de nombre.

Quizas en algunos paises todavia se dice Azafata/Azafato.

Caro y cara todavia se usa y se usa distinguiendo el femenino y masculino.

Bienvenida........

Ciao
Elaina

[sina]

So i guess you would pretty much consider AZAFATO a word?

[sosia]

The Spanish Royal Academie considers it as a world, so it's a spanish word.