12. CHUTAR O BALDE/BUSCAR O BALDE

Just the other day, a friend of mine tagged me on an Instagram stories where she was getting back to the gym after a bit of time away. And the reason why she tagged me was because she used a very Brazilian expression for which she couldn’t find a translation. Now, as a good friend that I am, this one is for her.

So, what’s the literal translation for “chutar o balde”? To kick the bucket.

Makes sense? No! But you were kinda waiting for that outcome, weren’t you? Worry not anymore, dear foreign, I’m here to guide you to the clarification.

The pearl that “to kick the bucket” encapsulates is to give up on something in a very exasperated way. So, let’s say I’m on a diet and I’m very angry about the whole lettuce + white meat situation. Being a foodie, my first instinct after two days of diet is to kick the bucket and order a very delicious pizza with all the bacon I can afford on it. That’s a great kick of the bucket.

Now, I am a foodie, but I was kind of hoping to lose that spare tire around my waist, so I’d use the absolutely amazing development on the “chutar o balde” expression: “buscar o balde”, meaning “to pick the bucket back” (usually full of regret).

And that was what my friend was doing at the gym, picking her bucket back after a long time of inactivity. To show her triumphal getting back on track, her exact words were “check this bucket picking out!” (Or not exact, my memory sucks and Instagram stories only last 24 hours, so you’ll have to trust me on this).

The kicking the bucket can also be used as an explosion of frustration when someone can’t bear a situation any longer. Like if you have a horrible job with a terrible boss, and one day you finally gather the courage to throw everything up in the air. You just kicked the bucket. Hope you don’t have to pick this one back.

There are theories about the origin of “chutar o balde” some about a cow kicking the bucket of milk when fed up with the milking process. Or a darker version, that states that prisoners getting hanged on the gallows would step on a bucket that would be kicked by the executioner. Can’t say I particularly like these. The use is, fortunately, lighter.

As for pick the bucket back, that’s quite new, ramification of the kicking the bucket that no one really knows from where exactly it came, but it’s absolutely creative and I love it!

So, I hope you don’t feel the need of kicking the bucket of this blog, and if for some reason you do, I hope you come back to pick it back up.

Till tomorrow,

expressionada