LANGUAGE + CULTURE
It’s For The English Guy To See
The Anglo-Portuguese bond remains strong through idiomatic expressions
“Those blinds are just for the English guy to see” my contractor told me, scoffing at the picture I had just shown him on my phone.
“É para o inglês ver” meaning, it’s just for show. The goal is to deceive, mislead, or sell an image that doesn’t match reality.
I looked at the blinds on my phone again. They were gorgeous, somewhat affordable, yet utterly useless. My contractor was right.
They were in fact, just for the English guy to see.
I laughed, and asked him what he proposed instead. He told me I wouldn’t find a good-quality 2x2 meter set of blinds for less than a thousand euros a piece.
I don’t care what the English guy sees or thinks, I don’t have that kind of money. I told him I’d think about it, but what I really ended up thinking about was that silly expression.
Why do the Portuguese care so much about what the English guy thinks, so much so that we have a whole expression in turn of it?
An expression that even my Moldovan contractor, who has been living here for over a decade, uses in his daily conversations with clients.
