Sunday, July 02, 2006

Bom Dia, Bom Dia - Oh Dear, Oh Dear

About ten years ago I had a camping holiday in Portugal. We were often the only foreigners on the camping sites and the Portugese were always very friendly... in the mornings they would always greet us with a "bom dia!" which of course means "good day".

The thing was though, the way they pronounce it down there you don't hear the "b" and they kind of swallow the "m" in their noses so it sounded as if they were all going round saying, "oh dear, oh dear" to us.

And strangely, after that-thing-yesterday-which-I-am-not-going-to-mention just now, it seems very appropriate that the Portugese should be saying, "good day, GOOD DAY!" and that to us English it should sound like, "oh dear, oh dear".

2 comments:

Neutron said...

Hi Matilda...that is so incredibly sweet of you! Thank you...

Doris said...

My daughter keeps referring to that which will not be mentioned as Rugby on account of the way that Portugal played. I'd agree and for that hope they do not get any further.