I see the word corno a lot on social media in different contexts so I thought I’d dig into it a bit.
Me so corny
Ordinary, standard meanings are pretty straightforward:
A horn – ie, what a cow has on its head (you’ll also see “chifre” and “galho” especially in relation to a deer’s antlers, but the distinction between horns and antlers seems a little permeable…?)
By extension, various other things that are a bit like horns (antennae, tentacles, bone spurs and so on) will sometimes be referred to as cornos. You’ll also see “corno de abundância” or “corno de Amalteia” for cornucopia, or corno de sapato for shoehorn, for example.
A horn on a car (I’ve never seen this in the wild – buzina is the more usual word – but this definition exists in priberam).
One of the points at either end of a crescent moon.
A kind of plant – careful though, its not what we call corn (that’s milho), but a family of shrubs in the cornacea family.
But when I see it on social media, it usually means one of two things, depending on whether its singular or plural.
When it’s in the singular, it usually means cuckold, either in the original sense of a man whose wife is unfaithful, or the more modern one of someone who enjoys watching his wife be unfaithful. So when you see it online it’s often by the sort of person who would use the word “cuck” as an insult in English. They tend not to be the loveliest people, I’m afraid.
And in the plural, it usually means the face or head – so “um tiro nos cornos” =a bullet in the head, “levou uma pá nos cornos” = he got hit in the face with a shovel, and you’ll see various combinations of levar/ apanhar/ dar + nos cornos meaning various types of damage being inflicted above the neckline. In some cases it’s figurative – if someone loses a war or an argument or a football match, say.
There’s also “passado dos cornos”, gone in the head, meaning maluco or doido.
Espero que um cavalo te dê um coice nos cornos respectfully
So there you go. I hope you have enjoyed this dose of hardcore cornography. I feel like I should set homework for you. Try going in twitter now and searching for the expression “nos cornos”. Browse through a few examples and see if you can work out what the tweeter is trying to imply – whether they’re describing an actual physical injury or just some sort of defeat. Tell me your favourite example in the comments.
My plot to demoralise the Portuguese Republic by inflicting terrible puns on its citizens until they are unable to function continues apace. Here’s one I did yesterday – with a translation and explanation below.
Fui expulso da Sociedade Geográfica por ter insistido que o Terramoto de 1755 foi causado por moluscos marinhos. A partir daí, os sócios recusaram de falar comigo. Foi um ostrasismo.
So the translation is:
I was expelled from the Geographical Society for insisting that the great earthquake of 1755 was caused by marine molluscs. From then on, the other members refused to speak to me. It was an ostracism
It’s probably obvious *where* the pun is. Ostracism is the word that sticks out as unusual. So why is it meant to be funny? Ostracismo is supposed to be spelled with a C, not an S, as I’ve written it. Ostra means oyster and Sismo is another word for earthquake. So… Ostra Sismo.
Another C1 Exercise: uses of Fazer with a preposition
Não te faças de sonso. Diz-me! Passaste ou não passaste? (Fazer-se de = to our on an act – so this first sentence is like “don’t act all coy”)
Não estudei e isso fez com que chumbasse no exame. (fazer com que = to have a consequence. Note the use of the subjunctive after it)
Os meus pais queriam ir de férias durante o período letivo, por isso mandaram um email que a fazer de conta que eu estava doente (fazer de conta = to pretend)
Eu também, fiz por aprender mas não consegui reter nada do assunto. (fazer por = to make an effort)
Precisas de trabalhar e fazer pela vida (Fazer pela vida = to make a living)
Tens febre. Queres uma tigela de canja? O que é que posso fazer por ti? (this Fazer por isn’t really a comound verb. He’s just offering to do something for the person)
Farei um grande esforço para ajudar* o meu vizinho que quer pintar o quarto da filha mas não consegue mover os móveis. (Also not a comound verb. He’s just making an effort to help. This sentence and the one above are good examples of the subtle differences between por and para, I think. You’d translate both as “for” in English but in this case, the person is making an effort in order to help, so you use para, whereas in the previous paragraph you’re doing something as a result of their need, so it’s por)
Quando era sócio do clube de drama, fiz de príncipe da Dinamarca numa peça chamada… Hum… Hamster ou algo do género. (Fazer de = to act like, to represent)
Fiz o relatório da câmara municipal (This fazer de isn’t a compound verb – I just made the report about the local government)
Este texto faz parte da minha aprendizagem de português. (Fazer parte de =to be a part of something)
Continuing to fanboy about this song. Here’s a translation, highlighting the “Proparoxítono” words.
I’ve borrowed pretty heavily from some of the many versions on Lyricstranslate. They’re all by brazilians, I think, and they’ve done a great job, so I’ve cleaned up the english and made a few other changes but generally assumed they know more than I do about the point of the song. I found “flácido” really difficult to translate. It obviously means “flaccid” but that word just sounds so wrong in a song. I’ve gone for “sagging” since it fits in both the lines it’s used in. I think that’s the best I can do but this is the sort of thing that makes you realise how hard the job of the translator is.
A couple of interesting things to add:
Firstly, I didn’t notice when I heard it but the first two lines end in the same word. That’s a bit of a cheat, Chico, come on! It’s the only example of that though.
Secondly, he keeps the rest of the line unchanged almost all the time but there are a few other small changes, which I’ve highlighted in orange. The fact that portuguese doesn’t use many subject pronouns helps in this regard. In the first line, “fosse” goes from “it was” to “he was” with no need for other changes. You just get it from the context, because “única” changes gender, meaning it is now referring to the man, not to the (a) vez.
Amou daquela vez como se fosse a última Beijou sua mulher como se fosse a última E cada filho seu como se fosse o único E atravessou a rua com seu passo tímido Subiu a construção como se fosse máquina Ergueu no patamar quatro paredes sólidas Tijolo com tijolo num desenho mágico Seus olhos embotados de cimento e lágrima Sentou pra descansar como se fosse sábado Comeu feijão com arroz como se fosse um príncipe Bebeu e soluçou como se fosse um náufrago Dançou e gargalhou como se ouvisse música E tropeçou no céu como se fosse um bêbado E flutuou no ar como se fosse um pássaro E se acabou no chão feito um pacote flácido Agonizou no meio do passeio público Morreu na contramão atrapalhando o tráfego
He made love that time like it was the last time He kissed his wife like she was the last woman And kissed each child like they were the only one And he crossed the street with his timid steps He climbed the construction like he was a machine He built up four solid walls at thenext level Brick after brick in a magical design His eyes were crusted with cement and tears He sat down to rest like it was Saturday He ate rice and beans like he was a prince He drank and sobbed like he’d been shipwrecked He danced and laughed like he was listening to music He tripped on the sky like he was a drunk And he floated on the air like he was a bird And he ended up on the ground like a sagging package He agonized in the middle of the public pavement He died on the wrong side of the road disrupting the traffic
Amou daquela vez como se fosse o último Beijou sua mulher como se fosse a única E cada filho seu como se fosse o pródigo E atravessou a rua com seu passo bêbado Subiu na construção como se fosse sólido Ergueu no patamar quatro paredes mágicas Tijolo com tijolo num desenho lógico Seus olhos embotados de cimento e tráfego Sentou pra descansar como se fosse umpríncipe Comeu feijão com arroz como se fosse o máximo Bebeu e soluçou como se fosse máquina Dançou e gargalhou como se fosse o próximo E tropeçou no céu como se ouvisse música E flutuou no ar como se fosse sábado E se acabou no chão feito um pacote tímido Agonizou no meio do passeio náufrago Morreu na contramão atrapalhando o público
He made love that time like he was the greatest He kissed his wife like she was the only one And kissed each child like they were the prodigal son And he crossed the street with his drunk steps He climb the construction like it was a solid He built up four magic walls at thenext level Brick after brick in logical design His eyes were crusted with cement and traffic He sat down to rest like he was a prince He ate rice and beans like it was the greatest meal He drank and sobbed like he was a machine He danced and laughed like he was the next one He tripped on the sky like he was listening to music And he floated on the air like it was Saturday And he ended up on the ground like a timid package He agonized on the middle of the shipwrecked pavement He died on the wrong side of the road distrupting the people
Amou daquela vez como se fosse máquina Beijou sua mulher como se fosse lógico Ergueu no patamar quatro paredes flácidas Sentou pra descansar como se fosse um pássaro E flutuou no ar como se fosse um príncipe E se acabou no chão feito um pacote bêbado Morreu na contramão atrapalhando o sábado
He made love that time like he was a machine He kissed his wife like it was logical He built up four sagging walls at the next level He sat down to rest like he was a bird And he floated on the air like he was a prince And he ended up on the ground like a drunken package He died on the wrong side of the road disrupting Saturday
Construção – Chico Buarque
The song was written in the seventies, during the dictatorship when Buarque was living in exile. There are a lot of theories about exactly wht he’s trying to do, but he hasn’t really spelled it out, preferring to let people speculate. There’s a definite shift between the three stages: the first one seems quite factual, the second sort of carefree, the third nightmarish. The social criticism is about the fact that, at the time, a lot of people were moving to the cities in search of a better life but finding that living conditions and working conditions were pretty terrible.
Portugal becomes the latest country to be absorbed into the multinational televisual Borg Collective.
Será a Ursula só uma simples tradutora? 😳 A verdade chega a 5 de novembro em Glória, a primeira série portuguesa da Netflix. pic.twitter.com/nb88yHBX6G
Closely related to the post about vir and chegar: what’s the difference between “vir a saber” and “vir saber”? Well, I’m glad you asked!
Vir a saber, as you’ll know if you read “The Spy Who Chegged Me” is a way of saying that you came to know something, perhaps in a slightly roundabout way, by chance, but the light dawned and then you knew.
Vir Saber is more like “I came to find out”.
This is good because I had been wondering how to interpret a line in one of the poems (it’s a song, actually: Flagrante by Antonio Zambujo) that I learned a week or two back. the people in the next room either “finally got to know about us” or “came to find out about us”. Well, now I know so here we go with a translation of the whole thing
Portuguese
English
Bem te avisei, meu amor Que não podia dar certo Que era coisa de evitar
I gave you fair warning, my love That this wasn’t going to turn out well And it was something best avoided
Como eu, devias supor Que, com gente ali tão perto Alguém fosse reparar
Like me, you have to suppose That with people so nearby Someone was going to notice
Mas não Fizeste beicinho E como numa promessa Ficaste nua para mim
But no You made a pouty face And as if in a promise Got naked for me
Pedaço de mau caminho Onde é que eu tinha a cabeça Quando te disse que sim
Bit of a wrong turn Where was my head at When I said yes to you
Embora tenhas jurado Discreta permanecer Já que não estávamos sós
Although you had sworn To remain discreet Since we weren’t alone
Ouvindo na sala ao lado Teus gemidos de prazer Vieram saber de nós
Hearing in the room next door Your moans of pleasure They came to find out about us
Nem dei pelo que aconteceu Mas mais veloz e mais esperta Só te viram de raspão
I didn’t even know what had happened But being faster and smarter They only caught a brief glimpse of you
A vergonha passei-a eu Diante da porta aberta Estava de calças na mão
I went through the shame In front of the open door With my trousers in my hand
It’s great isn’t it! Lots of really good stuff in there. The one line that I really had trouble understanding was the first line of the last stanza “A vergonha passei-a eu” which seems like he’s saying “I passed her the shame” as if he were trying to blame it all on the girl, but that doesn’t make sense for all sorts of reasons. The “-a” on the end of passei is actually referring to “a vergonha”. So it’s like “The shame, I passed through it”. Normally in conversation you’d say “passei pela vergonha” but poetic license applies. Here’s the full thing. I’ve probably posted it on here before but I just love it so much it’s worth repeating.
Structures I’ve seen in books and never been quite sure how to parse. According to Ciberdúvidas,
Vir + A + Infinitive
Is a periphrastic form of a verb. Wait, wait, hold it right there, what is a periphrastic form? It just means you use extra words to give the verb a slightly different dynamic or even to change the tense. In english it’s things like “You shall go to the ball” or “I do like chips”. It might change the verb’s tense or it might just make it sound more complete and more dynamic. Maybe like in English: How do you come to be in a place like this? It has the sense of ending up somewhere by chance, and it sounds more interesting than “How did you get here?” or “Why are you here?”
There’s an example in the book I’m reading now. Talking about Bolsonaro’s attempts to blame minorities for everything Ricardo Araújo Pereira says “Acredito que a gente ainda venha a descobrir que há inúmeros gays negros e índios na Lava Jato”.
Chegar + A + Infinitive
“Chegar a”, on the other hand is more like “finally managed to…”. It’s stressing the end of the action coming after a long time or a strenuous effort. Searching for an example similar to the one above, I hit on this one which is from a religious website talking how, after a lot of prayer, the believer can finally come to understand the project that God has laid out:
A oração também se torna caminho para o discernimento vocacional, não só porque Jesus mesmo convidou a rogar ao dono da messe, mas porque é somente na escuta de Deus que o crente pode chegar a descobrir o projeto que Deus mesmo traçou: no mistério contemplado, o crente descobre a própria identidade, «escondida com Cristo em Deus»
I felt sure when I saw this t-shirt from Cão Azul that it would turn out to be some sort of idiomatic expression but as far as I can tell, it’s not. “Fazes-me tanta falta como o dedo mindinho” just seems to be something they decided would be a cool slogan. Interesting vocabulary though
Fazes-me tanta falta como… = I miss you like
Dedo mindinho = little toe or little finger. You can specify “dedo mindinho do pé” if you like, but I guess they thought it wasn’t necessary with the picture.
I have already done a post about the names of fingers a little while ago but it’s not vocabulary I use very often so I’d forgotten all about it, and I see I used a different word – “Dedo Mínimo” at the time. I checked in priberam though, and either will do. Neither is brazilian or anything, it’s just like we use “little finger” and “pinkie finger”.
Incidentally, if you don’t already know this, walking around with a portuguese t-shirt on is a great way of announcing to everyone around you that you speak portuguese. That’s nice if you like boasting, but it’s even better if you want portuguese speakers you happen to meet out in the real world to say “Oh! Do you speak portuguese?” whereupon you can clutch at their elbow and not let them go until you have wrung half an hour of conversation practice out of them. For more terrible ideas like this, have a look at the portuguese language hacks page.
Anyway, the point is, I recommend Cão Azul as the internet’s most useful language learning resource.
I’ve been trying to tune my ears in to this series of videos. The character is called Bruno Aleixo and he has appeared in a few different shows. It’s sort of surreal humor. I would really like to be able to follow it but even with my wife’s translation there are big chunks I can’t make out. It’s got a really strong regional accent – you can hear the would “ouvir” has an extra syllable and sounds like ouviree, for example, and a lot of the words are run together so it’s hard to disentangle them.
There are two parts. I’ll put what she says it means and what I think I actually hear. Before she clued me in to what it meant I could only make out about a third of it, now I’m at about 80% but can’t quite make my ears hear the rest.
FIRST BIT If you have a brother, show him these tips (se tivesse algum irmão, mostra-lhe estes conselhos) / if you have a sister, don’t show her because they aren’t for girls (se something irmã não mostre something coisas something ouvir) / if your grandmother hears it she’ll hit me (se tua avó apanhe isto something-me)
SECOND BIT If you catch your uncle Horatio drunk, take the chance to steal his money (se apanhasse (? Tense?) o teu tio Horácio bêbedo aproveita para (re)tirar dinheiro) But careful, if he catches you he’ll hit you hard (Mas cautela, se ele te apanhe (? Tense) dá something… Oh wait, its cabeçadas isn’t it! com força) and the money is from France so you’ll have to exchange it at the bank (e a dinheiro é da França, tens something trocar ao banco – actually sounds like à banco but that can’t be right)
I’ve been watching the TV adaptation of Mário Zambujal’s novel, A Crónica dos Bons Malandros (the chronicles of the good… scoundrels…? hmm… it doesn’t sound as good in english though does it?), about a bunch of chancers who set out to steal some valuable jewels from the Museu Calouste Gulbenkian. It’s on RTP1 and it has portuguese subtitles which helps when the dialogue is fast (most of the time) but even so, it’s really challenging. Lots of slang, lots of period detail from the early eighties. Here are a few words and phrases that I collected along the way. It’s pretty far from being a full glossary, but they were the things that caught my intetrest
Os Bons Malandros – the Portuguese Ocean’s Eleven
A trouxe-mouxe
In a disorderly manner, helter skelter
Isso são pilha-galinhas. Vamos embora
When the gang get arrested early in the series, the cops get a call on the radio a abiut a more serious crime and so they decide to let them go because they are just “pilha-galinhas”: small-fry, literally chicken thieves.
Gamar
To steal something in a sneaky way. Nick it, pinch it, ‘ave it away.
Enxame
A swarm of bees. You can’t really miss this one because when they release it there are bees everywhere
Prateleira
Usually means shelf but it comes up in a slightly surprising context. According to Priberam it can also mean “Os seios”
Isto é uma cena muito política, ‘tás a ver? Cunhas
Cunhas just means wedges, and when people use it like this it’s meant to convey that the person has contacts who can help them get a foot in the door. In other words, it’s a gripe about being treated unfavourably by insiders making way for their friends.
Carlinhos dança que se desunha
Literally “desunhar” is what it sounds like: unhas are nails, as in fingernails, so des-unhar might literally mean to remove someone’s claws or nails, but more likely, when used as a pronomial verb with se, as in the example, it means working so hard that your nails come off. So Carlos dances a lot, puts everything into it. It doesn’t necessarily mean he’s good (although he seems to be that too!)
Trigo limpo, farinha Amparo
This one comes from an old advertising slogan for Amparo, a brand name of a kind of wheat meal popular in the seventies and eighties. I think when it’s used in the show he’s using it to mean it’s all good, nothing to worry about.
Pentelho
A public hair – or by extension any trivial, insignificant thing
Borla
Literally means a tassel, but can also mean a freebie. I’m not sure how informal this is though: the character who says it is asking a prostitute if she’ll “fazer uma borla” and I think he’s asking for a freebie as a regular customer. Whether you can use the same expression when asking your friend to fix your laptop for free, I don’t know. Caveat emptor.
“És anti-religiosa?” / “Nao, sou anti-mirones”
Said by Zinita when o doutor turns the statue of Jesus to face the wall. A mirone is a rubbernecker, peeping tom, lookie-loo, that kind of thing
Alcunha
This one comes up a few times and it means nickname
The nose, mouth area of an animal – the snout or the muzzle, so when the guy in the prison yard says he’s going to esmagar Flávio’s fuça he means he’s going to give him what PG Wodehouse would call “a poke in the snoot”
Olarila
Something like “oh yes indeed” although I don’t think the justiceiro means it when he says this to the fascist banana seller because in the next line he reminds him that his father is…
A gritar bravos ao Botas no cemitério do Tarrafal
Tarrafal was a concentration camp in Cabo Verde where the Estado Novo kept its political prisoners, so if someone was shouting bravo there they were probably a collaborator or a lickspittle of some kind. I’m not sure who or what Botas was – I can’t find a reference to him in any of the pages I’ve seen.
Bófia
The cops, the fuzz
Futre
Is just the name of a footballer. You probably already know gthat but I’m a bit slow on the uptake. I think the joke is that they’ve just heard about the robbery on the news and they ask Justiceiro his opinion but he’s distracted by another story, about the footie.
Engavetar
This one is pretty straightforward and just means to put something in a drawer (Gavete), but can also be used the way we might talk about “shelving” something – just put it aside and ignore it. In episode 6 there’s a scene where the police officer who has arrested Bitoque asks him if he will “engavetar” his grandmother and he’s using it in another sense, namely, to put someone in jail. So he just wants him to give them information about her crimes.
Defendo que Camarate foi um atentado
This comes during a really confusing scene half way through the last episode where there’s been a double cross, and nobody know where the jewels are or what’s going on, and people are pretending not to be able to understand each other’s accents and slinging around insults. Barbosa accuses his son in law of being an esquerdalha (leftist) and he replies that “I support the theory that the Camarate Case was an act of terrorism”. I’m not quite sure how this situates him on the political map TBH. The Camarate Case was a plane crash in the Camarate district outside of Lisbon in 1980. the then prime minister, Franciso Sá Carneiro and his finance minister, Adelino Amaro da Costa were both among the dead. This was shortly after the Carnation Revolution and there was a lot of shady stuff going on. Some think he was killed by the CIA because he was going to stop America from using the Açores as an air base, (that was a huge deal at that stage of the cold war), but I’ve also spent an awkward taxi ride listening to the taxista rant about how it was that bastard Mario Soares who had him killed. Soares was in the Partido Socialista whereas Sá Carneiro was in the Partido Social Democrata. You can read more about it here (Portuguese) or here (English). Or just ask a taxista.
Luso 