quarta-feira, 28 de março de 2012

Now...the cow REALLY went to the swamp!

In Portuguese, we have many expressions that metaphorically can express our feelings when we face some situations in our day by day, when something happened and we feel that, somehow it will create a tough situation or a kind of a problem...we could say ...OH...OH...A VACA FOI PRO BREJO! In fact it means "you (or somebody) screwed up!" = Estamos Ferrados!
I think I couldn't choose a more appropriated expression for today! We are screwed up...we lost Millôr Fernandes. He died yesterday night and for sure it's a huge loss. To understand it better I'll quote the reporter Zuenir Ventura (Millôr's friend) in an interview this morning to Globonews: "It's really a loss. The loss of a genius. It is a loss for journalism, for the theater, to literature, because Millôr did all that!" It's true...besides being a very talented writer, Millôr also developed other careers such as a journalist, playwright, translator and humorist. He was an expert in  Shakespeare and translated a lot of his plays into Portuguese. We lost a multi-talented man who was able not only to do many tasks but also to include humor in all these tasks, made them light but at the same time punctual.
He knew English so well that he wrote a book which brings a lot of Portuguese expressions literally translated into English...without worrying if it was right or not, without worrying about the real meaning of the words. He simply imagines how it could be said in English and used the English words, which, of course, was very, very funny! The book title The Cow Went To The Swamp (A Vaca Foi Pro Brejo!) is a very good example of it. If somebody says this expression in the way he wrote it in English, for sure it would mean nothing. An English native speaker wouldn't understand it at all and probably, he or she would ask what on earth the cow is doing in the swamp?  But for us...it's very funny because it is what we call "Inglês Macarrônico" or  "a very poor English". Only Brazilian people can understand it properly. His creativity had no limits. I used to have a lot of fun using his book in my English class...it was used exactly to show the students how they SHOULD'NT say it in English and mainly to show them a little bit of Millôr's work...the work of a genius! Thanks Millôr for such great moments!
By the way, could you possibly know what these expressions mean?
- To whirl the old woman from Bahia.
- If it gives cake, I take my body out.
- With me is bread, bread; cheese, cheese!
- Carioca of the egg's yolk!
- He wrote, didn't read, the stick ate!





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