Salazar

António de Oliveira Salazar,
100th prime minister of Portugal

I'm a little hard of hearing, so when the doutora asked me if I wanted a "Salazar" when transferring my evening meal from a small pot to the soup plate, I thought I heard her wrong. A what? I asked. Do you want a Salazar? she repeated.

The beautiful thing about languages is that they are not about words, but about culture, context and communication. And here I was definitely lost in the translation of her Porglish.

We went through this repetition a few more times until she finally reached over to the bamboo utensil holder and pulled out a spatula. A spatula? I asked. What the hell did you just call it?

Salazar, she responded patiently.

You've got to be kidding. Isn't there some other word for it?

Não.

Really? None at all? She muttered some other Portuguese expression.

So is that what you would say if you were talking to a Brazilian?

No, she responded, I would say it is a Salazar and explain it to them.

So she patiently explained to this dumb American that because the dictator Salazar had taken all the money for the state and kept the people poor, essentially cleaned out the the consumer economy like a spatula cleans a soup bowl, the kitchen tool now bears his name in remembrance.