姑父 and 姑夫

jkdfj
 March 20, 2012, 09:00 AM posted in General Discussion

I learned the word 姑父, meaning "uncle", on Chinesepod a long time ago. I've been trying to memorize this word, but haven't been able to. Just now I was thinking that the reason I'm having trouble is because the second character is 父 meaning "father", and 姑　is "aunt". 

I thought to myself, 姑夫　would make much more sense, and then I found out that 姑夫　has precisely the same meaning. 

My question is, is one of these two words used more than the other? Any other information about ? 

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jkdfj
 March 20, 2012, 09:05 AM

I'm beginning to suspect that the difference between these two words could be regional. Only 姑父　showed up in a Taiwanese dictionary I use a lot, and I think that means they don't write it the other way