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In the book Doña Perfecta, there is the dialogue:

¿Y viene mucho acá?

Toditos los días.

Nos acompaña mucho...

What does "todito" mean? I have a few theories:

  1. The same as "todo".
  2. Less frequently than "todo". The diminutive.
  3. The same as "todo" but an informal way of saying it.
  4. The same as "todo" but a cute way of saying it.
  5. Intensifier. A stronger meaning. "Every day" becomes "every single day". More often.

Is this word common or uncommon?

Is this a typical usage of the -ito suffix?

jacobo
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Sam
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4 Answers4

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38.2.2 Uses of the diminutive suffix -ito

The main effects of this suffix are:

(a) To give a friendly tone to a statement...

(b) To modify the meaning of adjectives and adverbs by adding a warm tone, or, sometimes, by making them more precise - e.g. ahora 'now', ahorita 'right now', todo > todito 'all' > 'absolutely all'

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jacobo
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    Just wanted to add that in Dominican Republic "ahorita" actually means later, not right now. In other latin american countries, like Panama, "ahorita" does mean "right now". – Felipe Gavilán Mar 23 '20 at 18:48
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Argentinean here.

We use "todito" with the same meaning as "todo" but in a friendlier tone. Sometimes we say "todo todito" to refer to absolute everything.

Mariano Vidal
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I would say is rather the point 5 of your list, you could translate it as "every single day".

Any way it is also each and every of your points, "toditos los puntos".

As your points reflect, the nature of this use of todos is informal, because normatively speaking there is no such a thing as a diminutive for an indefinite pronoun or determinant, it is rather an idiomatic use, which is common in the sence that it is clearly understood by a Spanish native speaker

Therefore this is not the typical use of -ito, if you define typical as normative.

Andrés Chandía
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    Thanks Andrés! So, if it's point 5, that is an unusual application of diminutive -ito. Because it seems sort of like an intensifier. Are there other examples of the -ito suffix which makes the word stronger, instead of smaller? – Sam Mar 21 '20 at 17:18
  • @Sam It comes to my mind an ironic use, for instance to say to somebody that is lazy as hell... "eres un poco flojito", in here the use of the diminutive is normative because it is applied to an adjective, but the intension is not to diminish but rather the opossite. – Andrés Chandía Mar 21 '20 at 17:27
  • very interesting. – Sam Mar 21 '20 at 17:29
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    @Sam In English you have quite similar cases "you are a little lazy", saying it ironically it meas "you're such a lazy person", didn't it? – Andrés Chandía Mar 21 '20 at 17:34
  • yes, that makes sense. In English this could be used for irony also. – Sam Mar 21 '20 at 17:48
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    I've heard the"-ito" usted emphatically, in Chile and in Southern Bolivia, and in Santa Cruz área, I've heard their equivalent "-ingo": "¡Se lo comió todingo!" = "He/She ate it all up!" – Conrado Mar 21 '20 at 21:03
  • Conrado, yes I agree with all of that, actually all of this (in comments) is what the user do with the language, and you can find that at descriptive grammars, as you can see in @ukemi's answer, but what was the normative grammars said that this is a diminutive to use together with nouns and adjectives... – Andrés Chandía Mar 22 '20 at 10:36
  • Right, I agree that this usage Is definitely informal. – Conrado Mar 22 '20 at 11:39
  • I'd like to add that, even when in this context option 5 is the most likely translation, it also includes definitions 1, 3 and 4. Option 2, however, is just a usage I never heard in Spanish (I'm Spaniard). – nanaki Mar 23 '20 at 09:35
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Yes, the same meaning as "todo" (all). As weird as it sounds I never thought about it until now but it really is just a nice way to say something. Like "feo" (ugly); if you don't want to sound completely messed up, someone could say "feito", although the concept doesn't change much: your still saying it, but not to sound like you're a jerk.

Glorfindel
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Jacob Drewz Garcia
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