so it's not that that word isn't fancy in portugese too. It's that that word might come easier to a portugese (or other romance language) speaker, since it's a cognate, so they use it, and end up sounding fancy in English.
An English speaker could do the same thing in portugese with the same words in reverse!
I even guess at words by taking what I think is an English word with a latin root, and converting it to Spanish, which sometimes works really well and at other times it doesn’t work quite so well at all!
"Periphery" does not have Latin etymology. "Peri" is overtly Greek, and so is "ph".
The Latinate version would be "circumference".
Yes, the English word (and the Portuguese cognate, periferia) does have a Latin etymology, via Late and Medieval Latin peripheria.
Now, the Latin word peripheria itself has a Greek etymology, from Greek periphereia. But both Portuguese and English get their word via Latin (and, in the English case, possibly also French, which also gets it from Latin, though sources differ on whether English got it from French or directly from Medieval Latin, and its plausibly not uniquely one or the other.)
The chap in question was from Portugal. If I understand correctly from your website, you're from Brazil, right? Is there any difference between how that word would be used in Brazilian vs European Portuguese?
The meaning is the same, both in Brazil and in Portugal.
As a curiosity the two countries (along with others) are part of the Portuguese Language Orthographic Agreement of 1990 [1] whose purpose was to create a unified orthography for the Portuguese language, to be used by all the countries that have Portuguese as their official language.
Nonetheless there is a lot of differences in usage, mostly regarding the "popular" vocabulary. Some heavily used words in one country are less frequently used in the other. There's also a noticeable difference in the accent.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_Language_Orthograph...
Context: I'm Brazilian and during high school I studied Portuguese "one official version behind". It had more rules, but the language itself was way nicer, and people used to write more close to it, than nowadays.
It's better to have a few mistakes due to some archaic rules than to force everything to be sterile and complicate how you pronounce things IMHO
Just let people evolve the language naturally instead...
I can tell you though, that using the word "periferia" is actually common in some place (although a bit rare in most). It's mostly used as a synonym for 'around the borders'.
The example you've mentioned: "move the burgers to the periphery of the barbecue", actually seems perfectly fine. It seems a little bit over-detailed, I guess that a bit context-dependent but I wouldn't bat an eye to the equivalent of "move them to the periphery".
From what I recall 'periferia' is also commonly used in TV news.
- "Eu não gosto de bolo" ("I don't like cake")
- "Eu também [não gosto de bolo]" ("Me too [I don't like cake]")
- I also [don’t like cake]
After 15+ years speaking and writing English daily, I still trip over the use of “in, on, at”.
And every now and then I have my first time pronouncing a word that I’ve known for years, from reading book in my teens. When I first tried to pronounce “phlegm” I tried to sound every letter on it.
The G is pronounced in the derived word "phlegmatic". It can't be pronounced in "phlegm"; English phonology doesn't allow for "gm" as a sound cluster.
(Whereas in "phlegmatic", you can put a syllable break between the G and the M, so it's at least possible to produce the sounds.)
- Stalling mid-talking with "ummm" or "ahh" while one thinks of more words to say
- Rising intonation to make a statement; usually rising intonation is for questions"
- Over reliance on works such as "like" ... which even now can be used to start a sentence as with: "like, I was going to the store the other day, and ..."
Portuguese is a beautiful language, and like French definitely unlike English, pronunciation of all the syllables is required. In that way it's a more athletic language. In English it's quite important enunciate the first and last syllables, while we compress or cram the middle ones.
The rising intonation is just an evolution of the language. I doubt it will stick, but it seems to be mostly used in story-telling scenarios to express some exasperating or confusing scenario in which the question is the point of the story. Almost all meaning in English is in the grammar and diction, so intonation is much more of an aesthetic preference.
Like is just a stalling word. French for example will often use words like donc to take a pause and decide how to best continue.
There is all sorts of slurring going on in French, as well. You can certainly say gendarmerie, but you'll more often probably hear gendarmrie in day to day speech. Certain subgroups do tons of weird stuff like swapping syllables of words. Mon moto becomes mon Tomo. The language is pretty famous for not pronouncing the last syllable of tons of words.
I don't speak Portuguese, but I bet you will find the same or similar patterns in that language.
We also use "περιφέρεια" for the circumference of a circle so I could say "στην περιφέρεια της ψησταριάς" to make a nerdy joke... but that supports your point.
Blasphemy! (In English, at least, circles have a "circumference" while every other shape has a "perimeter". Ovals seem to use either word.)
I never actually thought about combining "perimeter" with "circumference" to get "periphery".
I've lived in the UK for the last 15 years. I even think in English, these days.
The problem is that I keep forgetting Greek words and I find myself using English expressions even when I speak in Greek, even when I'm not speaking about work. And then I start saying things I'd never say in either language. I'm particularly shocked when I make blunders like "περιφέρεια του κύκλου". I just hope it's too early for early Alzheimer's.
To my ear, that sounds like something a non-native English speaker would say, rather than what an educated native would say. In my head the phrase comes complete with a vague foreign accent :-)
Eg. I don't speak fluent Portuguese but the closest cognate to o lado that I can think of would be to suggest to move it laterally.
> "move the burgers to the periphery of the barbecue"
That would be really formal over here too, the kind of wording that I'd expect in a grilling manual explaining how to use it, but not at a barbecue.
I can relate because sometimes I find myself speaking like that when talking to english counterparts, but mostly because when I'm "translating" my thoughts into sentences I have to choose between a group of words of similar meaning, and due to my inexperience, I often choose a less "popular" one.
EDIT:
After reflecting on this a bit more I also believe I often sound formal when speaking english because it's easier to use more/fancier words for the sake of not being misunderstood than it's to come up with a short, direct sentence that transmits my message in a clear way.
It's like adding redundancy to the message for reducing the risk of transmitting unintentional errors ;)