SOME WORDS COME WITH A POSTCODE. 🍒
I have been conducting research into my own tribe. The findings are not flattering. The English have been playing this game longer than anyone, and there is a famous list from the fifties of the words that quietly sort people into boxes. Lavatory, not toilet. Napkin, not serviette. Pudding, not dessert. And the great one: What? rather than Pardon? None of the forbidden words are wrong. They are simply audible. We play the same game in Portugal, with our own words. Cortinado , never cortina . Café curto , never bica . Giro , never fixe . Rapariga , never menina . And nobody, under any circumstances, announces that they are going to the bathroom. They say "just a moment" and leave the room. Nobody objects to bica on grammatical grounds. They object because you can hear the counter behind it. As for menina , there is a test I rather like, and it takes place in maternity wards. One kind of person asks é rapaz ou rapariga? The other asks é menino ou menina? Sam...