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How should I define the type of my aunt and uncle in order to specify among my parents, whose brother or sister they are?

Is it the natural way of it to precede these nouns with the adjectives "maternal" and "paternal" or there is another fixed term for them which I have to know?

I have always said:

She is my maternal aunt or he is my paternal uncle and so on.

But for soem unknow reasons these terms strike me a bit philosophical. I wonder if you let me know about it.

A-friend
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    It sounds very technical because we don't really care whether your aunt is a maternal or a paternal aunt. If you really need to specify, I think the best way is to say my mother's sister etc., but you could also say she's my aunt on my mother's side. –  May 26 '19 at 11:44
  • @Minty Pretty sure that you're supposed to answer in the Answers, not the comments. – nick012000 May 26 '19 at 12:48
  • @nick012000 If that were provided as an actual answer, I would downvote it. It ignores the other senses of maternal and paternal, which would be commonly understood in this context. – Jason Bassford May 26 '19 at 17:00
  • So @Jason Bassford do my offers work in this sense? – A-friend May 26 '19 at 17:12
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    @A-friend Yes, it's very common. If you follow the links I provided, you'll see that the dictionary uses examples of just such sentences. – Jason Bassford May 26 '19 at 18:10

1 Answers1

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Maternal and paternal work; you can have a maternal uncle and a paternal aunt.

You might also say the distaff side for the female side of a family, or the spear side for the male side.

‘the family title could be passed down through the distaff side’

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/distaff

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/the_spear_side

Different languages and cultures have different ways of describing relatives; see

How can you recognize "uncle" is father's brother or mother's brother? (Is there any "default option"? )

the Arabic language (for example) has a special word for the uncle of the father side (am- عم) and the uncle of the mother side (khal-خال)

and

https://spanish.stackexchange.com/questions/12788/is-there-a-way-to-differentiate-between-uncles-aunts-grandparents

Owain
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