Editor's Corner

A joyful day to you readers! I hope your spring has sprung and that you are surrounded by tulips and daffodils!

Today, I have a few terms for you from dictionary.com, which are not English, but Portuguese. There are several other terms in the article, but these were my favorites. They are words that we don’t have an exact English translation for, thus the lengthy definitions of each. Enjoy!

cafuné

Perhaps the origin of the romantic image some of us have of Brazil is found within the Portuguese language. “The act of caressing or tenderly running fingers through a loved one’s hair” is a mouthful mercifully avoided in Brazil with the term cafuné. This affectionate action can be applied to lovers and pets alike, as can the term chamego, which wraps up the senses of intimacy, infatuation, and cuddling, all in one term.

farofa

A traditional Brazilian feast will come with a side of farofa. This dish consists of manioc flour toasted in butter, and usually mixed with finely chopped ingredients like bacon, eggs, or bananas. Brazilians generally serve farofa alongside other foods at a traditional barbecue, called a churrasco.

xodó

Your xodó is your sweetheart, in a way that applies both to your significant other and also someone you have a special closeness with, such as a grandparent. A pet could be a xodó too (especially if it’s enjoying cafuné). You can also “have” xodó for someone when you have a soft spot for them. This all-purpose term of endearment originated in northern Brazil and might be translated in some instances as the slang term boo. Another good match for this word (albeit in Spanish) is cariño.

desenrascanço

The term desenrascanço, used in Portugal, roughly means “the act of disentangling yourself from a difficult situation using available means.” Some English speakers find a near translation of desenrascanço in the colloquial verb MacGyver, as in the Gizmodo headline “How NASA MacGyvered the Crippled Apollo 13 Mission Safely Home.” The eponymous verb MacGyver comes from the action/adventure show of the same name, first aired in 1985, in which the title character evades sticky situations by reconfiguring the limited resources at his disposal. For example, in one episode, MacGyver fashions a trap using plywood, rope, water jugs, and a smoke detector to help him escape from a heavily guarded warehouse. That’s quite a “disentangling.”

Kara Church | Technical Editor, Advisory | Technical Publications

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