20. MÃO DE VACA

Guess what? The cow again! In a completely different meaning that also has nothing to do with the literality of the expression.

The literal meaning of “mão de vaca”? “Hand of cow”.

Now, cows don’t even have hands! And yet, the expression is vastly used when someone wants to call another someone a penny-pincher.

I have an uncle who’s known for being a scrooge (kinda like Uncle Scrooge, with less gold) and it’s amazing how much effort he’s gonna make to save a penny. And I’m not sure if it’s genetic or a learned behaviour, but his dad (my grandpa) and his daughter (one of my favourite cousins) are exactly the same. It’s a hell of a mission to try and get any amount of money out of them. It’s like they have a scorpion in their pocket (also an expression – “ter um escorpião no bolso”).

Funny thing is that we have a word for stingy in Portuguese, it’s “avarento”. In fact, there are countless synonyms for it: “mesquinho”, “sovina”, “miserável”. And yet, we prefer the figurative expressions, that are also too many to count: “mão de vaca”, “pão-duro” (hard bread), “unha de fome” (nail of hunger), “mão fechada” (closed hand).

There’s even a joke about the “closed hand” one, they say that if a stingy person swim across a river with a effervescent tablet in their hand, the tablet will get to the other side intact. I bet my uncle can do that.

As for its origin, it seems like the expression comes from the shape of the cow’s hoof and its inability of handling objects. Not really explanatory, and once again, the poor animal getting the blame for humans (poor) behaviour.

Now, dear foreign, no reason for being a cow’s hand around here, all I want is your attention.

Till tomorrow,

expressionada