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Clare Balkus's avatar

Oh! The trees that edge the island are lovely! Lacy , dappled shade.

Clare Balkus's avatar

I am assuming that Ruas are male or female depending upon what or whom they are named for? It's interesting.

Great photos!

Scott H-K's avatar

Interesting you should ask as we had a similar conversation during the editing of the piece.

Rua is actually a noun; it means street. Nouns are gendered, those genders don't change. What does change is the article between Rua and the name of the street. Our street, for example, is Rua do Salitre. Salitre is a masculine noun, which is why the article is "do." Liberdade is feminine so we have Avenida da Liberdade.

Trying not to get even more bogged down in grammar than I just did, "do" and "da" are actually two separate words pushed together - "of the," translating literally to "de o" or "de a" (depending on the gender of the noun that follows) which is unwieldy so instead they're combined.

All of which is knowledge we've picked up in just the last couple of weeks.

Moira McKinnon's avatar

The photos are wonderful, Amy! How lucky you are to be living in such a beautiful place!

Kelly's avatar

I really enjoyed this one. We are a "Rua dos" (Sobreiros - which means cork oaks!).

Scott H-K's avatar

Glad you liked it! Do you have cork trees in your neighborhood?

Clare Balkus's avatar

It's interesting that French, Spanish and Portuguese use similar designations. Not surprising really but I love finding similarities.