6. TEM... MAS ACABOU!

Today we go back to the man who started this idea of Brazilian expressions for any occasion in my mind – Mr. Fiancé.

He usually goes around on our traditional customs and once and a while he faces some situations that force him to let out a very exasperating: “This makes no sense!”

But that’s not our expression of the day, that’s just his reaction upon hearing the expression of the day. And I gotta tell you, maybe the man has a point.

So, imagine you are at the supermarket and you can’t find bread, so you go up to the supermarket assistant and ask: “Is there any bread?” And in Brazil, the helpful person will look into your eyes and say: “Tem, mas acabou”, which literally means: “There is, but it’s over”.

Can you feel Mr. Fiancé’s confusion here?

It’s not like the expression is contradicting to it’s literal translation as we’ve seen here before, it’s like the first part of the expression is contradicting the rest of it.

How can you have and not have something at the same time?

What the salesperson is trying to tell you is that they usually have bread, yes, it is among the items sold in that establishment, but in that specific moment, they sold out.

So, there is no bread. Now. You might try again later, they’ll probably have it.

But not now.

I don’t really think that is so confusing, but maybe that’s that Brazilian brain of mine making sense of that. Apparently a lot of gringos have a very befuddling moment with this one.

It never ceases to amuse my fiancé. He goes: “Why don’t they just say ‘No, there’s no bread’?”

But then you wouldn’t know that if you come later, you might find it, would you?

So I think this one is encapsulating further than “we’re out”, there’s a lot more into it and I quite like it. And now that I have this unfolded for you, maybe it will make it a bit of sense and you won’t suffer to understand the salesperson.

As for this blog, we’re not out! We still have a lot of Brazilian expressions to unravel and I can’t wait for it.

Till tomorrow,

expressionada