Why do words, suddenly appear,
so every time, you can hear
just what they mean, and all the things
they’re supposed to do?
This phenomena of the suddenly appearing word is part of living as a foreigner inside a language world. Starting out, it can be an incredibly basic word, even one of those that straddles the line between word and sound, which you then realize is everywhere. I can imagine a visitor to English one day finding the language full up of like like like everywhere he goes, stumped as to how he didn’t hear it before.
The longer you hang around a language, the more you feel the right to dislike a word, and that happened to me with a basic Brazilian word that's used in an annoying way. The word is Aquela- that. Reference the above foto and her most famous song to understand the special way it’s being used.
so every time, you can hear
just what they mean, and all the things
they’re supposed to do?
This phenomena of the suddenly appearing word is part of living as a foreigner inside a language world. Starting out, it can be an incredibly basic word, even one of those that straddles the line between word and sound, which you then realize is everywhere. I can imagine a visitor to English one day finding the language full up of like like like everywhere he goes, stumped as to how he didn’t hear it before.
The longer you hang around a language, the more you feel the right to dislike a word, and that happened to me with a basic Brazilian word that's used in an annoying way. The word is Aquela- that. Reference the above foto and her most famous song to understand the special way it’s being used.
That thing, that thing, that thiiiiiiiiiiiinng, is what I want you to hear. Now imagine if the song were “the thing, the thing, the thiiiing.” It would be missing something.
The answer, besides that thing, is emphasis. This is the way people be using it down here.
I identified/hated the word for the first time when I was overhearing a conversation on the bus, in which a very performative storyteller was telling about another time he was on the bus and there was a couple having a fight. But it wasn’t a fight, it was that fight. Indeed, it seemed the couple had started having that fight. But considering that the reason for the fight wasn’t known or much less communicated by the storyteller, so that aquela, a specifying word specifying nothing, wasn’t just some sauce for your sentence but actually a hotdog bun with no meat and all ketchup.
I identified/hated the word for the first time when I was overhearing a conversation on the bus, in which a very performative storyteller was telling about another time he was on the bus and there was a couple having a fight. But it wasn’t a fight, it was that fight. Indeed, it seemed the couple had started having that fight. But considering that the reason for the fight wasn’t known or much less communicated by the storyteller, so that aquela, a specifying word specifying nothing, wasn’t just some sauce for your sentence but actually a hotdog bun with no meat and all ketchup.
There is another guy who I know who, instead of sending a hug like everybody does when they are hanging up on the phone, he sends that hug, much better because he is playing off it, and at the same time implying that his hug is special and memorable, which it certainly is since he be 5 foot 2.
2 comentários:
So this other guy that you know will right now make one of the pop/cultural connections he's made/staked his "reputation" on, and perhaps account for one of the usages you've so entertainingly described, and described hating.
Funny that once you mentioned "aquela/e" as the offending word -- that word (ha) -- my mind, as it often does with Portuguese, which is mostly kept alive in my brain by a now-burgeoning collection of bossa nova, MPB, and Brazilian soul, immediatey referenced "Aquele abraço," a 1969 song written and performed by Gilberto Gil. [You can actually listen to the whole version, and multiple versions of it, on Gilberto Gil's own site. Pretty great site, actually. (I'm most familiar with the first few versions): http://www.gilbertogil.com.br/sec_discografia_obra.php?id=87 ]. Living life in (or here, outside of) a language, being in touch with it mostly through music brings its own share of bizarre stresses, words that collect in the eddies of a an otherwise fast, rhythmic flow, and lingering once the flow dries up, only for you to pick 'em up like starfish -- yours to keep, but maybe a little dead outside of their liquid home.
Anyway, the funny part which is probably not funny at all was that "aquele abraço" ended up being one of the very phrases that you made specific note of, and it was the only one running through my head reading your piece, right up until I read it.
Here's the Wiki for the song: http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquele_Abra%C3%A7o
Now I'm not saying that Other Guy's always wishing you THAT HUG (from those arms) when he does wish you "that hug," but maybe. Or maybe he's riffing on the song, kind of like (ha) when me and my boy Lu used to say "Peace in da Middle East" instead of just "Peace" because rappers we liked said that once at the end of a show. Or, as you've pointed out, maybe his hugs are really that special.
In which case, the case I'd like to retain belief in, is that he's just getting real hip-hop with his mother tongue, like..."That's that sh*t, sonnn!!!"
That's that hug, meu bem!
Since you lanced a jorge bem song at me, I offer Eu Vou Torcer, linkless, supposing your duck on a leash fished it for free.
It reminds me of the party in which my bathroom door was broken by men in tight jeans. It was bittersweet redoubled, so I put it out of my mind, georgie B good as well, until you reminded me. Now its a room I am back in, and once again a song proves a real tupperware for time. Thanks!
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