Retrato falado once again

Este artigo está em inglês, caso queira ler em português clique aqui.

Some days ago I posted here about ‘retrato falado‘ in English. If you don’t remember or if you haven’t read the post I strongly recommend that you do it.

A couple of readers sent me emails asking about the word ‘mugshot‘. According to them, they’ve learned or read somewhere that ‘retato falado’ is ‘mugshot‘ in English.

I’m awfully sorry to inform but that this is not the case. Mugshot is a different thing and is not related to ‘retrato falado‘. My Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English [which is available online here] reads,

Mugshot isa photograph of someone’s face, especially a criminal’s, or one taken for official purposes.

Take a look at the picture above. It’s an example of a mugshot. Unfortunately, there isn’t a word in Portuguese that best translate it; so, we have to call it “foto“, “retrato“.Now, why do they call it ‘mugshot‘?

Back in the 18th Century, ‘mug‘ was a slang term for someone’s head [or face]. This was so because there were beer mugs which were shaped like a person’s head. Needless to say, that these mugs weren’t that beautiful. Thus, somebody who wasn’t that handsome or beautiful could be described as a ‘mug‘. The word ‘shot‘, however, means [among other things] ‘retrato‘, ‘foto‘When put together, we have ‘mugshot‘ which literally means ‘foto do rosto‘ in Portuguese. If you google pictures for mugshot, you’ll have a better idea of what a mugshot is.

That’s it for today, guys and gals! See you all tomorrow!