I’m going to be doing the London Nightrider event this weekend. I’ll be riding 100km, which is… what, about 65 miles? Something like that… to raise money for the Alzheimer’s society. It would mean a lot to me if you could sponsor me on my JustGiving page. I’ve got a temporary extra button over on the right-hand-side there 👉
It’s an overnight session, so I’ll be starting at 11PM and finishing at breakfast time. I’ve been cycling since I was tiny, but I’m not a sporty cyclist and I’ll be doing it on a very ordinary mountain bike, so I’m sure I can do it but it’s probably going to be pretty slow and painful!
It probably doesn’t look like much here but you should see the original, looming above you…
I was sorry to hear of the death of Paula Rego, an amazingly powerful and versatile portuguese artist who made her home here in Britain . She made it to 87, that’s a good long life so no tragedy, but still, a loss for the world.
I went to see some of her work at Europe house last summer and then later in the same year went to see the full exhibition at the Tate with my wife, who was always far more aware of Rego’s work than I was, of course. I went looking for the blog post I wrote about the Tate visit and was a bit surprised to find I hadn’t written one! I wasn’t as active on here back then, but stll, I don’t know why I didn’t write about that of all things.
Oh well, at least I know who I’ll be writing about on writestreakPT tomorrow!
It is with immense sadness that we announce the death of the Portuguese-born, British artist Dame Paula Rego at the age of 87. She died peacefully this morning, after a short illness, at home in North London, surrounded by her family. Our heartfelt thoughts are with them. pic.twitter.com/hFXdIZeTtb
I’ve just written a brief text in Portuguese about this which will probably end up being a blog post soon but I thought I’d expand on it in English in the meantime because it’s interesting!
In English we don’t usually say “I want a cup of tea” because it sounds too blunt, so we go for something gentler like “I would like a cup of tea” instead. In the same way, the Portuguese have a fondness for tweaking the tense to sound more polite. They do this by saying “I was wanting a coffee”. And so, if you are a bored waiter you might decide to interpret this in the most literal way possible and reply with “Oh, you were wanting one, we’re you? So you don’t want one any more?” I know, hilarious, right?
I quite like it actually since it is both amusing and instructive for us learners but I think some people find it irritatingly pedantic, especially when it is repeated often. A recent article on Timeout Lisboa has taken waiters to task for this and for another literalism – namely when they reply to a request for a glass of water (“um copo de aqua”) by replying that they don’t have any glasses made of water, only glasses made of glass but if you want, they can give you a glass with water in (“um copo com água”). Marco Neves, in his blog, Certas Palavras, takes up the baton and gives a few other examples of nonstandard uses of verb tenses as well as some of his pet peeves. It’s a good read if you are at intermediate level or above.
Of course, as with most things, as soon as you noticed some weird feature of Portuguese, you realise English has exactly the same weirdness. I’ve already mentioned “I would like” as a politer version of “I want” but here are some other examples of verb tenses being used in weird ways in everyday English that are completely fine but would be confusing if you took them at face value.
Present tense for future events: I hope I don’t catch covid because I’m visiting my parents at the weekend.
Conditional tense for past events: When he was depressed he would spend his evenings drinking Drambuie and watching repeats of Peep Show with his cat.
Future perfect tense for things you assume to be true: Ah, Hamish, you’ll have had your tea
Present tense for historic events (the so called “historic present” or “narrative present” which was briefly both trendy and controversial a few years ago and basically dominates podcasting): “The Romans invade the Iberian Peninsula in the third century and are met with fierce resistance, not least from the Lusitanian tribes, led by Viriatus”
Studying another language has given me a new appreciation of my own.
I don’t really use Facebook much, but I have a couple of groups I follow lazily and one of them is called Portugal De Antigamente. I like to make sure I’m reading social media by Portuguese people, not just groups that are just dedicated to learning Portuguese. It broadens the horizons a bit and gives you more of a sense of the culture that the language is rooted in.
I like this one because people share old photos, memories and objects they have from their childhood or recent family history. Here’s one from Helga Schmidt-Glassner, for example. I’ve just found an article about her and will probably make her the subject of a future post in her own right.
I’ve mentioned before that there’s a Portuguese version of Wordle called Termo and I’ve been enjoying that in a daily basis. Well, there’s now a termo not on twitter, so this vice is on tap 24 hours a day!
To play, just tweet at this account and tell it a five letter word. It’ll reply straight away and you can keep going till you win. Or don’t.
It’s not as easy to follow as the website because you have to keep track of what letters you’ve used but that’s OK, it’s still fun and challenging and you can do it more than once a day!
Another word I’ve come across as a slang word for one’s offspring is “metralha”. Metralha is normally a volley of bullets (hence “metralhadora” for machine gun) or a hail of shrapnel but it seems to mean kids too. I can’t actually find any authority for this: it’s not in priberam or the dicionário informal or this thing I sometimes use. There’s a guy I follow on twitter who always uses it though. Presumably he isn’t the only one, but who knows.
While I was reading As Telefones Someone asked me if I was enjoying the book because the author “is pretty militant” which surprised me because I don’t really get that from the books at all. There’s one racist incident I remember from Marremoto, but I don’t really get strong militant vibes. Obviously, by writing about people in the margins of society like Boa Morte da Silva, I guess there’s an implied criticism of the system as a whole there, but I don’t think it’s any more than an author should feel for the subjects of her books. And what’s literature for if not to show us a different perspective on life?
I’m not sure where the idea that she is militant comes from. She seems very empathetic – to the point of avoiding any attempt to educate the reader because she feels like it gets in the way of the protagonist’s own voice.
She quotes Peter Geach, husband of Elizabeth Anscombe, in the closing minutes. I can’t find the quote online but it’s something like “It’s possible for a man to lose his one chance while he is still young, and live to be old, feeling happy and at ease in the world but in the eyes of God, be dead”. That’s heavy stuff, man, but it’s Christian ethics, not Marxism, feminism, CRT or whatever. So I’m at a loss to know where this “militant” thing has come from, unless she was more of a firebrand in her youth.
Another batch of expressions from the C1/2 Textbook I’m using
Passar pelas brasas (pass through the coals) =have a little sleep
Dar barraca (give a shed) = provoke a scandal
Surdo como uma porta (deaf as a door) =deaf as a post
É outra loiça (It’s different crockery) =much better (food)
Estar em maus lençóis (be on bad sheets) = be in a sticky situation
Falar de poleiro (speak from a perch) = Speak arrogantly, get on your high horse
Ser um bom garfo (be a good fork) = be a lover of good food
Eira
Sem eira nem beira (without a floor or a roof*) = very poor
Estúpido como uma porta (stupid as a door) =daft as a brush
Atirar o barro à parede (throw the clay at the wall) = test the waters to see if someone might be receptive to your idea
De cortar à faca (you could cut it with a knife) =same as the English expression – when the atmosphere is so tense or oppressive that you feel like you could cut it with a knife
Cascos de rolha (corked casks) = a long way off.
De fio a pavio (from string to wick) =from beginning to end. (I think we’re supposed to think of a candle burning all the way down)
Entrar em parafuso (go into a screw) = go into a tailspin, panic
*=There was a bit of debate over this one. Eira is a kind of floor or patch of ground in a village, where harvested grain is threshed and sieved ready for storage. Beira is a word we usually hear when talking about the seaside (“beira mar”) but it can be the eaves of a roof. The phrase is sometimes expanded to “Sem eira nem beira nem ramo de figueira”, adding that the poor bugger doesn’t even have the branch of a fig tree.
The book I’m reading is pretty hard. I judge these things in how often I have to reach for the dictionary and this one is about three times per page. I’ve just come across a really surprising word: “pechisbeque”.
Duas camisolas de malha iguais, de cores diferentes, um pólo cor-de-rosa, uma caneta, um par de brincos de pechisbeque, dentro de uma caixinha acolchoada, dois perfumes em miniatura
As Telefones – Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida
Pinchbeck / Pechisbeque
Not only is it unfamiliar, but what it’s describing isn’t even something I’ve come across in my half century of life. The English equivalent is Pinchbeck and its an alloy of copper and zinc that resembles gold. Is it just me? I’d never heard of it.
Luso 