21. MEIA-TIGELA

This is one my favourites! It’s so pleasant to the ears, although is so derogatory that it’s funny!

The literal translation of “meia-tigela” is “half bowl”. Now what on earth?

Not an actual bowl broken in half, that’s for sure, then what does it mean? A half bowl thing is a thing with no importance, of bad quality, mediocre and vulgar. Applied to people, it means someone is insignificant, and it’s a degrading term in any case.

Although there are some divergences about how the term became an expression, everyone agrees that it happened back on the Portuguese monarchy (so this one comes from Portugal Portuguese, and we inherited it). Some say it has to do with the fist born son being the only with importance and allowed to be part of a dinner where the dishes were thrown at the floor and broken. Others say it’s about less important servants getting half the portion of food that hierarchically higher servants would get, so half bowl. And there’s even another one about slaves getting back from their chores, the early ones would get a full bowl, the late ones, just half.

I read during the search for this post that this expression is not used so much anymore, and I was shocked! How could they? It’s a great one! And whoever said that obviously hasn’t been anywhere around my family. All it takes is someone providing a service, and that service not meeting the promised standards. The painter becomes a half bowl painter, the plumber becomes a half bowl plumber and the cook becomes a half bowl cook. They are diminished to second-rated workers. What can I say, family hates lousy workers and whoever does a lousy job would be labelled “meia-tigela”

Now, I hope you don’t think this project is a half bowl, dear foreign, I promise you I always do my best to bring you the whole bowl.

Till tomorrow

expressionada