Category: English
Tão gostoso!
My wife is making me watch this Madeiran cooking channel. I was unsure at first because the accent and the regionalismos were hard to get past, but it’s great. She’s hamming it up a bit, apparently: she’s playing a character of an old-time islander. I guess in English terms it’d be like someone doing a strong Welsh accent.
The food looks flippin’ great though: traditional and full of delicious calories. The camera work is fantastic and I would give my right arm for her massive clay mixing bowl. And although I hardly understand her dialogue I’m enjoying trying.
Also sort of hoping Mrs L will cook some of these things…
Well This Looks Interesting
It came up in my YouTube feed and I’ve no idea how I’m going to be able to watch it but I’m definitely going to try. The empty nest theme strikes a chord since our baby left home for uni this year. Speaking of which, she’s coming home for Christmas later today and I’m a very happy daddy!
Errant Preposition Hearts Club Band
Corrections from Português Outra Vez
Ele entrou na igreja, aproximou-se dum ícone, beijou-o, persignou-se e saiu, balbuciando algo. I wrote “aproximou-se a”. Also, persignar-se (genuflected) was a new word for me!
Vocês vão para o Egito?! Só podem estar a entrar connosco (I hadn’t the faintest idea what this was even meant to be saying so took a total guess on both the verb and the preposition)
Se quisesses ser menos obeso, obedecerias às prescrições do doutor Nunes. (I used the imperative tense, but that doesn’t make sense following in from the imperfect subjunctive)
Em 2003, eu formei-me em Filologia Eslava pela Universidade de Bratislava. (i used “na” as the second preposition)
The Greatest Stôra Ever Told
Here’s a little detail I spotted in o Mangusto. The pupils in this PE class refer to their teachers as stôr and stôra. I thought it seemed weird as an abbreviation for professor(a), because where does the t come from, but apparently it is short for “Senhor(a) Doutor(a)”
While the Devil Rubs His Eye
But Me No Buts
Mangas-de-Alpaca
I spotted this phrase in a book I’m reading, referring to “uma comissão de oficiais técnicos”. The speaker starts his rant by exclaiming “Baboseiras!” which I took as being related to “babar” (to drool) which it is, and so he obviously doesn’t have a high opinion of these people. OK, so I’m not expecting anything good, but what does it actually mean?
Mangas-de-alpaca were sleeves worn by clerks on their lower arms to protect their clothes from getting scratched and ink-stained during service. By extension, the term can be used pejoratively to describe a bureaucrat or a pen-pusher in general.
Whether or not you use hyphens is usually important and the AO tends to be quite prescriptive. I’ve used hyphens here because that’s how Priberam spells it but neither Wikipedia or the book use hyphens, so I’m not really sure who’s correct!
Sopinha de Massa
New favourite expression just dropped. I was talking about a song from the eighties called “There’s No-one Quite Like Grandma”. If you’ve never heard of it, rush to listen, because it kept “Stop the Cavalry” by Jonah Lewie off the top slot in 1980, and you’re probably hearing that a lot in the run-up to Christmas, so you’ll want to know what you’re missing. Anyway, the expression, used to describe the soloist was “sopinha-de-massa” – Noodle soup. It just means someone who lisps and can’t pronounce their etheth… I mean their esses properly. As about 80% of all british comedians have pointed out, Lisp has always been a terrible word since people who have one can’t even say it. How much harder is it to say “Thopinha-de-matha?
If you’re curious, the more proper term for a lisp, used by speech therapists (this lady, for example), is “Sigmatismo” which isn’t much better!
Vocabulary Car-crash
I still have to reach for the dictionary a fair bit, especially when reading something high-brow, but it’s not often I hit a sentence that has four unknown words in it.
Não se lembrava ela de lhe ter visto os dentes, mas recorda-lhe as mãos gorilentas, as calças de seriguilha descaídas no ventre e em cujo cós deve estar enfiada uma podoa em jeito de faca recurva.
Check this out.
Gorilenta isn’t even in the dictionary but I think I can guess it…
She didn’t remember having seen his teeth but she remembered his gorilla-like hands, the trousers of rough wool, sagging in the belly, and in whose waistband is stuck a pruning shear in the form of a curved knife.
Ooof!
Luso 