Office boy
is an Anglicism widely used in Brazil. Merriam-Webster Learner's Dictionary calls it old-fashioned.
Google NGram shows it achieved its highest popularity in the 1920s and from the
1940s it started dropping. Interestingly, office boy, along with moto, a
shortening of motocicleta, motorcycle, has produced offspring in Brazil, such
as motoboy, not entirely Portuguese and not exactly English either. A motoboy
is a motorcycle messenger or a motorcycle taxi driver. Funny enough, most of
these motoboys are no boys at all, since the required minimum age for riding motorcycles in Brazil is 18. I have even ridden with 50-odd-year-old men.
Word of the Day
beatitude | |
Definition: | Supreme blessedness or happiness. |
Synonyms: | blessedness, beatification |
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