Gauchês

Recebi por email a história que transcrevo abaixo da forma como a recebi. Marquei com negrito as palavras que chamaram a atenção deste paulista que vos escreve. Embaixo do texto encontrarão uma explicação dos termos próprios do Rio Grande do Sul.

Remorso do gaúcho !..

    
Em Uruguaiana a gente fala a verdade sempre ...
Um gaúcho entra na delegacia de polícia em Uruguaiana e dirige-se ao delegado:
-Vim me entregar, cometi um crime e desde então não consigo viver em paz.

- Tchê, disse o delegado, as leis aqui são muito brabas e são cumpridas e se tu és mesmo culpado não terá apelação nem dor de consciência que te livre da cadeia, mas fala...
- Atropelei um petista na estrada BR-472, perto de Itaqui.
- Ora xirú, como tu podes te culpar se esses petistas atravessam as ruas e as estradas a todo tempo ?!?
- Mas o vivente estava no acostamento.
- Se estava no acostamento é porque queria atravessar; se não fosse tu, seria outro qualquer.
- Mas não tive nem a hombridade de avisar a família daquele qüera, sou um porqueira !!!
- Bueno, se tu tivesse avisado haveria manifestação, repúdio popular, passeata, repressão, pancadaria e morreria muito mais gente. Acho o senhor um pacifista, merece uma estátua.
- Mas senhor delegado, eu enterrei o coitado ali mesmo, na beira da estrada.
- Tá provado, tu és um grande humanista,... enterrar um petista,... és um benfeitor. Outro qualquer o abandonaria ali mesmo para ser comido por urubus e outros animais, provavelmente até hienas.
- Mas enquanto eu o enterrava, ele gritava: Estou vivo, estou vivo, estou vivo !!!

- Garanto que era mentira dele!

Xirú (sic) (não deveria ter acento) não encontrei dicionarizado, mas encontrei nesta página onde lhe atribuem o significado de amigo. No entanto, achei chiru no Hoauiss 2009, definido assim: que ou quem é caboclo ou índio; ou aquele que tem pele morena, traços acaboclados

Vivente, mais fácil de entender, significa, segundo o mesmo dicionário: Regionalismo: Rio Grande do Sul: indivíduo, pessoa

Quera, cujo tema está com os dias contados, pois o período de transição do novo Acordo Ortográfico termina a 31 de dezembro deste ano, também segundo o Houaiss, é adjetivo e substantivo de dois gêneros e significa muito corajoso; valente, valentão.

Bueno é claramente um castelhanismo para bom.

Gênero de ultrassom

Acabei de descobrir que há quem diga a ultrassom, no gênero feminino. Há quase uma centena de casos na internet. Será que é por causa de a ultrassonografia? Os dicionários só registram o gênero masculino para ultrassom.

Desonerar como estragar-se

Descobri no dicionário Houaiss 2009 esta acepção interessante de desonerar:

n verbo
Regionalismo: Nordeste do Brasil. Uso: informal.
 intransitivo
perder ou alterar-se a consistência de (algo), tornando-se imprestável ao uso; estragar-se, degenerar-se
Ex.: o leite desonerou, é melhor não tomá-lo

Algum leitor, sobretudo do Nordeste, poderia confirmar se tem experiência com o verbo usado neste sentido?

English loanwords in Czech

Decades ago not many Czechs knew how English words were pronounced and that explains why some words were adopted and adapted according to their spelling in English, not to their pronunciation. An example is cowboy, which became kovboj in English, which sounds nothing like English cowboy. The same with tramway, which became tramvaj. But decades later things are a bit different. Runway entered the language as ranvej, which is much closer to how the English original. Funny how two words ending in way, tramway and runway, met different fates in the same language.

Service and religion

Funny how the same word in Slavic and Germanic can be interpreted differently according to language. Czech náboženství and Slovak náboženstvo mean religion, but Polish nabożeństwo means a religious service, as the Polish word for religion is religia. German Godsdienst, service, looks like Dutch godsdienst, but the latter means religion (religie is also used).

Infinitives and badly structured sentences

Some people get extraordinarily angry about this sort of thing [a split infinitive]. If you're not of those people, the infinitive is the form of the verb that uses "to", as in "to reproduce".

Two things here: infinitives don't have to have a to. In the sentence she cannot swim, swim is also an infinitive, a bare one.
The other thing: If you're not of those people... one thinks if you are not one of those people who get extraordinarily angry, as that is the topic of the previous clause, but then the author goes on with something completely unrelated.

Büffé

I've been writing about pseudo-foreign words. Here is a Czech example: Každý čtvrtek živá hudba a büffé s delikatesami od 18 hodin. Every Thursday live music and  buffet with delicatessen from 6 p.m. There's no büffé in German, no büffé in French, no büffé in English . The word is spelled bufet in Czech.

Misspelled foreign words

The same Czech weekly that wrote separatisty this time had on its cover Vítajte in Slovak instead of Vitajte (Welcome) and Schönnes Vorwort in one of its articles instead of Schönes Vorwort (pretty/beautiful foreword/preface). If they must use foreign words, can't they check them first before publishing?

Bebidos

I've recently seen a Czech business called Bebidos, with the following slogan: Ta správná volba pro Váš bar (the right choice for your bar). I wonder if their choice of name, which means drunk(en)/drunkard in Spanish (less often in Portuguese as well), is deliberate. Or were they aiming for Bebidas, drinks/beverages? No explanation on their website.

Celsius

My wife and I were curious as to whether Anders Celsius name was original was if it had been latinized at a time when such practice was common. This is the information I found on Wikipedia (and other sources as well): Anders Celsius was born in Uppsala, Sweden on 27 November 1701. His family originated from Ovanåker in the province of Hälsingland. Their family estate was at Doma, also known as Höjen or Högen (locally as Högen 2). The name Celsius is a latinization of the estate's name (Latin celsus "mound").


The same explanation appears on Swedish Wikipedia:

Celsius, släkt härstammande från kyrkoherden i Ovanåker, Hälsingland, Nicolaus Magni Travillagæus, senare Alphtaneus (1577-1658), vars son matematikern och astronomen Magnus Nicolai Celsius, som först kallade sig Metagrius, tog namnet Celsius efter en latinisering av namnet på prästgården Högen som var hans barndomshem.

And on English Wikipedia (which is a translation of the Swedish):

The Celsius family descended from the vicar of Ovanåker parish in Gävleborg, Sweden, Nicolaus Magni Travillagæus, later Alptaneus (1577–1658), whose son, the mathematician and astronomer, Magnus Celsius, took the name Celsius which was the Latinized form of his fathers vicarage and his childhood home . 

But the thing is Latin celsus doesn't mean mound, but high, elevated, lofty, noble, as can be seen here and here. It's an adjective, not a noun. Is it maybe due to the fact that the same Swedish word hög can be an adjective meaning high and a noun meaning pile, heap? I can obviously see an analogy between highness and mounds/heaps/piles, but still.

Japanese syllabaries

They goofed up in this episode of my favorite Slovak quiz show, Duel. They asked:

Uveďte názov aspoň jednej z dvoch japonských slabičných abecied používaných na prepis cudzích slov.

Name at least one of the two Japanese syllabaries used to transcribe foreign words.

As the contestant didn't know the answer, the host said the two syllabaries were hiragana and katakana. Sure, both are syllabaries, but hiragana is not used for that purpose, katakana is.

Declension

Czechs and Slovaks have a curious way of referring to something being the talk of the town. They say a certain person, object, place etc. is being declined/inflected a lot, which is funny, considering that many languages have nothing like declension. Here is a Czech example:

Nejvíce se skloňují jména Peter Turkson z Ghany, Odilo Scherer z Brazílie, Angelo Scola z Itálie, Marc Ouellet z Kanady a v posledních dnech také Péter Erdö z Maďarska.

Literally: The names of Peter Turkson from Ghana, Odilo Scherer from Brazil, Angelo Scola from Italy, Marc Ouellet from Canada and lately also Péter Erdö from Hungary are the most declined names.

And here is a Slovak one:

Taiwan zachytil varovanie: Skloňujú sa pripravované teroristické útoky v Číne
 
Literally: Taiwan caught a warning: Prepared terrorist attacks are being declined in China

Cariologie

In this episode of Romanian Who wants to be a millionaire?, one of the questions is about the scope of study of cariologie. There were, as always, four choices as answers: cell nuclei; dermis and epidermis; hair and nails; and enamel and dentine. The contestant decided to walk away as she didn't know the answer, but at the host's request, said she would have chosen enamel and dentine. The correct answer was given as cell nuclei. As the word reminded me a lot of caries/tooth decay, I went on a quest for its meaning. This Romanian dictionary confirms it means a science that studies the structure and functions of the cell nucleus and gives French caryologie as its source. French caryologie indeed means that, but on the Internet you also find Romanian professionals in the area of cariologie who describe it as the part of medicine that treats caries.

The interesting thing is that I've found both karyology and cariology in English, the first deals with cell nuclei, the second with caries, but both would merge to the same letters, c and i, in languages that don't use k and y, which is the case of Romanian (among others). Can the same Romanian word refer to two distinct scientific specialties, or is there a real difference between studying only caries and studying enamel and dentine, which would then exclude letter D as an answer? At least the contestant walked away and wasn't harmed by choosing any alternative.

Separatisti

On the cover of a Czech weekly magazine: Мы ничего, мы сепаратисти. (We are nothing, we are separatists).

I wonder if the mistake in сепаратисти (it should be сепаратисты) is deliberate to somehow express that they don't care about Russian or the Russians.

Klimatizační

Found in a Czech weekly: Jedním z takto nedávno odstavených je bývalý ministr vlády Margaret Thatcherové, nyní lord, Nigel Lawson, častý rozhlasový debatér, publicista a autor knižního bestselleru, jenž pod titulem Apel na rozum analyzuje alarmistickou histerii (sic) teorie klimatizačních změn.

One who has been recently shunned is the former minister under Margaret Thatcher, now lord, Nigel Lawson, a habitué of radio debates, journalist and bestseller author, who analyzes the alarmist hysteria (hysterie in Czech has a y) around the theory of "air conditioning" changes in the book An Appeal to Reason.

Klimatizační refers to air conditioning. What the author had in mind was klimatický, climatic.

Amnestize

I think it’s charming that a story like this would still appear in American media three years after O waged undeclared war in Libya and maybe three weeks before he decides he has the power to amnestize 10 million people.

Does amnestize express anything different than amnesty as a verb?

Homo Italiens

In a weekly magazine, a Czech woman living for more than fifteen years in Italy describes Italian men under a heading she calls Homo Italiens. It is obviously based on Homo sapiens, but there is no such word in Latin (it would be Italicus), and what is worse: Homo Italiens means homo(sexual) of Italy in German.

Liberar, libertar

http://linguagista.blogs.sapo.pt/como-se-escreve-nos-jornais-1273959

http://ciberduvidas.pt/pergunta.php?id=29465

Como está escrito no primeiro texto, tem-se a impressão de que liberar se usa no Brasil e libertar em Portugal. Não é bem assim. Ambas as palavras são usadas no Brasil. O dicionário Houaiss trata-as como sinônimas, mas há contextos em que uma me soa melhor do que a outra. Vamos ver se alguém discorda. O X indica agramaticalidade no meu dialeto (sou de Botucatu, interior de SP)/idioleto.

X libertar informações
? liberar informações
Melhor: revelar, divulgar informações

libertar um prisioneiro, um preso
liberar um prisioneiro, um preso (Ambas me parecem possíveis, mas prefiro a primeira.)

libertar das garras de alguém
X liberar das garras de alguém

liberar o aluno para ir ao enterro da avó
X libertar o aluno para ir ao enterro da avó

Abraham Lincoln libertou os escravos americanos.
X Abraham Lincoln liberou os escravos americanos.

liberar uma mercadoria
X libertar uma mercadoria

liberar alguém de uma obrigação
libertar alguém de uma obrigação (Ambas me parecem possíveis, mas prefiro liberar aqui.)

liberar a maconha
X libertar a maconha

liberar uma substância, um hormônio, um veneno
X libertar uma substância, um hormônio, um veneno

Serviços tercerizados

É assim que se apresenta uma empresa do ramo. Lembrou-me como muitos cabeleireiros grafam o nome da própria profissão: cabelereiro e acho que já cheguei a ver cabelerero.

Tinker Bell

http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinker_Bell_%28filme%29
http://www.cineclick.com.br/tinkerbell-fadas-e-piratas

Sempre foi Sininho no Brasil, agora virou Tinker Bell, é? As crianças vão ter de enrolar mais a língua para falar ou basta um simples tínquer béu bem à brasileira, com um tink inicial que, dependendo do dialeto e do idioleto, lembra bem o apelativo pejorativo chink da língua inglesa referente a pessoa de origem chinesa?