Durante um belo momento, achei que o dia 21 de Dezembro é um Feriado em São Tomé e Príncipe especificamente por causa do Dia das Palavras Cruzadas, mas não é. É uma coincidência: o dia nacional daquele país (quando as ilhas foram descobertas em 1470 por João de Santarém e Pedro Escobar) é celebrado no dia dos cruciverbalistas.
This slightly confusing question was raised by Paul Freixinho in his Palavra Cruzadas newsletter today and it was obvious from the way he answered it that readers would be in on the joke.
What could it mean? Well, it seems to be a linguistic quirk. A filhó is a kind of mini doughnut/pancake type treat with a little lemon zest, rolled in sugar, and I guess some people eat them at Christmas, judging from the fact that he mentions it in his Christmas newsletter.
But what makes it weird is that some people call it a filhós. That’s given as a straight synonym in priberam. So it seems if you call it filhó then the plural is filhós, but if you call it filhós then the plural is filhoses.
A couple of spelling notes here: firstly, some people spell it “filhozes” but that’s just wrong. And secondly, it doesn’t need an accent because the accent in filhós is only there to shift the stress into the last syllable, but once you add the – es on the end, the stress naturally falls on the o anyway!
There’s a recipe for them here if you fancy trying them, and a specific Christmas version here, which is slightly boozer, spicier and fruitier, made with yeast; so leaning in more of a doughnut direction than a pancake direction. As far as I’m concerned, you’re welcome to call them whatever you like!
(Thank you to Paulo Freixinho for bringing this to my attention and if you don’t already have his book, but you like crosswords, you could do a lot worse than score yourself a copy, which you can do on his website!)
Comprei este livro há um ano e 3 dias, no dia 12 de junho de 2021. Transferi-o pata a estufa logo depois. Está lá há um ano, a ser mordiscado por caracóis. Já fiz quase trinta por cento. Apesar da capa ser basicamente lixada, as páginas vazias permanecem surpreendentemente limpas. Acho que é capaz de sobreviver mais dois anos!
I finished this easter crossword slightly late. It was one of the easier ones and I hardly even needed to use the dictionary.
One of the things I learned in the process was how you describe the clues. In English we say “one down” and “seventeen across”. In Portuguese the down clues are “vertical” and across “horizontal” but I’ve never been sure if it was “um da horizontal” or “um horizontal” or what.
So I asked:
Adoro fazer palavras cruzadas. Tenho um livros cheio de palavras cruzadas portuguesas. O autor é Paulo Freixinho e cada palavra cruzada tem um tema.
Uma coisa que não sei é como se referem os espaços (da grelha) e as pistas correspondentes. Por exemplo em inglês, dizemos “one down” para indicar a primeira pista no vertical” mas será que os portugueses dizem “um na vertical” ou “um vertical” ou “um para baixo” ou… Uma outra coisa?
The answer turns out to be pretty simple: it’s just “um vertical” and “um horizontal”. Boring but useful – at least if you are a crossword fan.
By the way, vertical and horizontal, when used as nouns, are feminine, but in spite of that its still “um vertical” not “uma vertical” because we’re not saying that there is one vertical, we’re referring to number one in the list of vertical clues.
Here’s a cryptic clue for you:
Portuguese hero assisted some. Aid endures somehow (9,2,5,6)
The answer is someone I wrote about a couple of weeks ago who is now being honoured posthumously for his heroism.
If you’d like to try your hand at a crossword in Portuguese, there’s one themed on the man himself on Paulo Freixinho’s very good website.
Luso 