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Lost in Translation Forty

July 8, 2009
13:11 PM

I just love the French phrase; embarras de richesses meaning having more resources than one knows what to do with .

I always felt it implied that one was made awkward by the generosity of the people who were offering help/services/loans to one, but of course it is nothing of the sort.

The nerd in me again drove me to my dictionaries to find where these embarrassments came from.
According to the OED the stem of the word is a Portuguese word Baraço, meaning a halter. This then stretched to mean to hamper or impede (where it lived on until recently in America where an embarrassment could mean an accumulation of driftwood partially blocking a waterway)
From this it extended to mean to throw into doubt or difficulty, to complicate and from where it was but a short step to the meaning of making one feel self conscious or ashamed.

The French phrase therefore, I think, goes back to the earlier meaning of the word and it implies that one has so many resources that it is actually a hamper to sorting out ones problems.

Comments

  1. Eugene

    on July 8, 2009

    Or the spanish ’embarazada’ which means ‘pregnant’!

  2. Martin

    on July 8, 2009

    Which, as any male chauvinist will tell you, relates back directly to the Portuguese ‘Baraço’.

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  Martin Dwyer
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