I was writing today about the use of English and Englishisms by Brazilian software developers and I ended up going back to a web page maintained by a professor at USP, which talks about how to write properly about informatics “in the language of Camões,” i.e., in “good” Portuguese. (I'll post some time my thoughts on state of “the language of Camões” in Brazil, but not now.) Last time I read this page in a hurry, but this time I took the time to read it and look at all the terms. I also followed a link from the bottom of the page to lyrics for a song Samba Do Approach by Zeca Baleiro. Now, here is a puzzle for those who don’t speak Portuguese:

Venha provar meu brunch

saiba que eu tenho approach

na hora do lunch

eu ando de ferryboat

You perhaps would not be surprised (though perhaps disappointed) by the “brunch” – “lunch” rhyme. But what about “approach” rhyming with “ferryboat”? :) Yes, they do rhyme. (Hint: Neither would be pronounced quite as in English. Or, rather, none of the four words would be.) Once you've pondered those, you can move to other rhymes from the song:

• “green card” – “pop star” (this one I couldn’t figure out until I heard the song)
• “Miami Beach” – “noveau riche”
• “background” – “Fittipaldi”
• “happy end” – “macho man” (he doesn’t quite rhyme those, though he could have)
• “dream team” – “drag queen”

With introduction, you might want to listen to the song on youtube (and watch the beautiful scenes of Rio near Lapa):

(You might want to look at the lyrics while listening.)

Note that just to throw you off, Zeca Baleiro pronounces some of the English words “as in English” (well almost), to the point where they don’t rhyme, even though they all rhyme (ok, not “savoir-faire” and “hi-tec”) when sufficiently Portuguesified.

Ok, back to a somewhat more serious discussion of English in Brazil that I won’t bore you with…