The Lesson for Today Is in Portuguese, Part 2

When I critiqued the New York Times for overlooking the fact that over half of Latin America speaks Portuguese, not Spanish, I was being a bit hard on them, I'll admit. But when Daily Candy decides to promote the new Brazilian-themed Caviar and Banana Brasserio with an email entitled, "Caliente en Nueva Yorke" I am completely within my rights to give them utter crap about this.

What is with the Spanish-language "Hot in New York" title? And if you're going to write in Spanish, please note that it's "Nueva York", not "Nueva Yorke". Sure, most gringo-American types can figure out that "Caliente en Nueva Yorke" is supposed to mean "Hot in New York." And those same monolingual Americans won't know that "Quente em Nova Iorque" is Portuguese for "Hot in New York." They won't even know what language it is, most likely.

So take a different tack in your humor next time, OK? Throw in a Carmen Miranda reference, or a samba/soccer/bunda reference. Go ahead and traffic in those cliches. But, please, oh, please, don't perpetuate the misleading idea that brasileiros se hablan espanol. Cuz they don't, certainly with no more frequency than your typical gringos do. Obrigada.