Me: There’s no way that’s true
Me, after web searching: Huh…
Context: They have a betting game called “Jogo do bicho” (Animal game, direct translation). Number 24 corresponds to deer, which is “veado” in portuguese - which is very similar to"viado", which is a slur for gay people persons.
I still doubt these candles are popular though.
Number 24 corresponds to deer, which is “veado” in portuguese - which is very similar to"viado", which is a slur for gay people persons.
The slur isn’t just similar to the name of the critter — it is the name of the critter. You also see people using “gazela” (gazelle), “Bambi” (that Disney critter), “biba saltitante” (jumping… “biba”, dunno what was supposed to be) as slurs for gay people, always under the “flamboyantly jumping” stereotype.
The reason it gets spelled with an “i” is that slurs and swearing often get misspelled in Portuguese. It’s the same deal with boceta→buceta (pussy), caralho→caraio→carai (dick), foder→fuder→fudê (to fuck).
Thanks for the explanation mate, that makes a lot more sense.
I’m portuguese and I always thought that veado was the word, just that “e” was “stressed” to sound like “i”. I didn’t know until today that there were actually two words
23 + 1 assholes, totally not gay /s
Having candles on your birthday cakes at all is pretty gay at that age
I’ve never seen a sentence use the same dumb logic it criticizes so succinctly before
You don’t have candles on your birthday cake just because you’re grown up? What a sad life.
No homo, but I love to blow a big candle on my b-day.
Big candle sounds like a plausible euphemism like bull or twink.
It is an most joyful occasion for gaiety…
Why is 24 gay? 🤨
And isn’t “anos” actually “anus?” Años is “years old.” If it’s different in Portugese, that is one hell of a coincidence. lol
Funny, because straight men worry about whether they might be or might be perceived as being gay all the time.
Now over to Colin Poppshed at the Gay Desk
Aside from the homophobia, they still get birthday cakes with candles that say their age when they are 24?
Only if you are gay.
/s in case someone misses the “homophobic-phobic” joke.
What else should they get? Birthday cakes with candles that say someone else’s age? That wouldn’t make any sense.
are you kidding? gran was a party animal. if she got them why wouldn’t I?
Just going to say that looks way more gay than the number 24…
The more you try to avoid looking gay, the more gay you look. It’s funny coming from a place as gay as Brazil.
“No homo but happy birthday! Anyway which one of you fellas is up for some hotdogs and whipped cream?”
If they are worried about seeming gay, why are they decorating their cake with 23+1 sparkly magic Spanish anuses? Seems preeeetty gay…
For those confused, in Portuguese (which they speak in Brazil), “ano” is year. But in Spanish “año” is year, and “ano” is anus. Also the blue seems speckled or glittery (unclear in the picture) and it says in the corner that it has a magic wick.
That’s part of the joke. This isn’t really taken seriously here, you’d probably buy this for your friend to tease him in a friendly manner.
Don’t put the word anus after it then!
But they’re happy with an anos on their cake.
til “years” in Portuguese is spelled like “anus” in Spanish
Can someone share some lore what is the connection between being gay and 24 in Brazil?
There’s an illegal gambling game that has been extremely popular for decades called the animal game (jogo do bicho), in which each number represents an animal. 24 is the deer (veado). There’s also a derogatory word for gay men, viado. The two words sound the same. So 24 is “the deer’s number” but it sounds like “the fag’s number”.
Viado comes from desviado, which means someone who was driven off the proper path. It’s just a matter of homophony (and homophobia).
Viado comes from desviado, which means someone who was driven off the proper path. It’s just a matter of homophony (and homophobia).
I’ve seen people backtracking the etymology to desviado and transviado. I don’t buy it because clipping (truncamento) in Portuguese usually preserves the start of the word, even at the expense of the stressed syllable; e.g.
- universidade university → uni
- refrigerante fizz, soda, coke, pop → refri
- depressivo depressed → deprê
So following the same pattern for “desviado” the result would be *des or *desvi, not “viado”.
The explanation may be as simple as that the word works better as an expletive by keeping the stressed syllable. All the examples you gave are “friendly” clippings but “viado” is derogatory.
I think it also applies to expletives. Check for example ⟨vagabunda⟩* /va.ga.'bũ.da/; if there was some pressure to keep the stressed syllable it would be clipped into *bunda or *gabunda, but it’s usually clipped into ⟨vagaba⟩ instead. Technically the /b/ from the stressed syllable is still there, but the core /ũ/ ⟨un⟩ is gone.
*gotta explain this one to the folks here. “Vagabunda” means whore, promiscuous woman, etc. It’s highly offensive, way more than the nearest English equivalent (slut), it’s the sort of word to not use even in a joke. (The masculine “vagabundo” is depreciative but socially acceptable — it means lazy arse, do-nothing.)
Good argument. But then where do you think viado comes from?
Se incomoda se eu responder em português? Então, pra resumir a missa: tenho quase certeza que o xingamento (viado) vem do nome do bicho (veado). Motivos:
- Em português é comum alçar [e o] para [i u] logo antes da sílaba tônica; principalmente em hiato, que vira ditongo, e o [i u] vira [j w]. (O nome técnico disso é “alçamento pré-tônico”, caso queira procurar papers sobre o assunto.)
- Palavrões muitas vezes são escritos com uma ortografia mais popular, não-padrão, representando a pronúncia. Há outros exemplos disto; tipo boceta→buceta, foder→fuder, até mesmo caralho→caraio (e olha que [ʎ] “lh” →[j] “i” é bem restrito dialetalmente)
- Há outras expressões usadas para atacar a comunidade gay, associando-os com bichos saltitantes; tipo “gazela”, “biba saltitante”, etc. Tem também “bambi”, mas essa é claramente derivativa de “viado”.
Convincente. Dei uma pesquisada e me deparei com esse texto aqui, que atribui a origem do termo a um homem específico, um socialite português que vivia em Niterói, dono da marca Cigarros Veado e notório por suas escapadas com homens. O jornalista que inxestigou o assunto descartou as hipóteses do desviado/transviado.
Realmente o mistério é mais difícil de solucionar do que parece à primeira vista.
