Lame

So, the big day arrived. Football fans all over the world tuned in to follow Brazil’s opener at the World Cup against a weak North Korea, expecting to watch yet another display of the “jogo bonito” by the five-time champions. Brazil came out victorious. That is cause for celebration, right? Well, hardly!

Brazil did bring home their first 3 points of the group stage, and that would be considered mission accomplished for many teams in the world – but not for Brazil. For the green-and-yellow fans, winning alone is not enough. Heck, winning is likely the least important of reasons why Brazilians follow their team on TV! They expect nothing less than magic and enchantment from the national team – the “jogo bonito”, remember?

What they witnessed yesterday, however, was a far cry from a beautiful performance. To be sure, Brazilians were happy that the “seleção” won the game – but it was a lame victory, they say.

Here’s an interesting word – lame.

The adjective lame is used to mean ‘”coxo”; “manco”, “aleijado” in English. It is considered an offensive word to use when talking about a person. Lame eventually came to mean weak, unconvincing, not smart or impressive. As in a lame victory ("vitória mixuruca") above. Here are more examples:

> What a lame excuse!

Que desculpa esfarrapada!

> She didn’t accept the lame apology he offered for cheating on her.

Ela não aceitou o pedido de desculpa fajuto que ele fez por ter traído ela*.

> What a lame joke you made!

Que piada mais sem graça a sua!

>She’s nice but her boyfriend is really lame.

Ela é legal, mas o namorado dela* não está com nada / é péssimo

Now let’s hope that Brazil finally plays the beautiful game against the strong Ivory Coast on Sunday!

*Even in written Portuguese, I prefer the constructions "ter traído ela" and "o namorado dela" to "tê-la traído" and "seu namorado", respectively.