We often say that someone
is a saint of the hollow stick, to refer to a disguised person, without knowing
the story that gave rise to this expression. "Santo do pau oco"
is an expression of the colonial period in Brazil, when Portugal charged high
taxes on metals and precious stones explored in its colony. In order to
circumvent this scheme, images of hollow wood saints were produced and
"stuffed" with powdered gold. Thus came the idea of a person
with the appearance of false saint.
"Break the ice"
is an English expression with direct translation services in Portuguese,
"breaking ice", and originates in the maritime trade. In some
places, it was common for boats to get caught up in the ice during the
winter. The country of destination sent smaller boats that could break the
ice and release the vessels of merchants. From this then, this gesture
became synonymous with partnership and understanding between two territories
and is often used at the beginning of a friendship.
We say someone is a mad
hatter or "mad as hatter" when that person is completely
crazy. "Mad hatter" is also the name of one of Lewis Caroll's
most famous characters in his "Alice in Wonderland"; however,
the origin of this idiomatic expression (or "idiom" in English)
precedes the book in a few centuries. In 17th century France, hatters wore
mercury while making hats. Mercury poisoning caused a disease that became
known as "Mad Hatter Disease", as the patient had symptoms that made
him look crazy.
Another expression
present in several languages is "black sheep". In addition to
Portuguese, we also find this expression in German, French, Serbian, Spanish,
Greek, Polish, among other languages. Its origin is in sheep breeding,
when a black sheep occasionally was born into a herd of white sheep and whose
black wool was not considered desirable from a commercial point of view because
it could not be dyed. Another explanation for its negative significance is
that in the past there were some beliefs that all black animals were evil (the
most famous example of this belief is the black cat).
When
we're going to take a picture of someone, we usually say "look at the
bird" to get the person to smile in the picture. This tradition began
in the 19th century, with the invention of photography. The process was
time consuming and tedious because people should stay still for up to 15
minutes to get a satisfactory result. That's when someone came up with the
idea of putting a bird cage behind the camera, to entertain the kids and make
them still for longer. In the United States, a similar strategy was also
used, but with toy birds, which gave rise to the expression "watch the
birdie!".
