Nickname
- Due to the Brazilian dictatorship's unwillingness to get more deeply involved in the Allied war effort, by 1942 a popular saying was said at a session by Getulio Vargas: "it's more likely for snakes to start to smoke now than for the BEF to set out." ("Mais fácil uma cobra fumar do que a FEB embarcar.") Until the BEF entered combat, the expression "a cobra vai fumar" ("the snake will smoke") was often used in Brazil in a context similar to "when pigs fly". As a result, the soldiers of the BEF called themselves Cobras Fumantes (literally, Smoking Snakes) and wore a divisional shoulder patch that showed a snake smoking a pipe. It was also common for Brazilian soldiers to write on their mortars, "The Snake is smoking ..." ("A cobra está fumando..."). After the war the meaning was reversed, signifying that something will definitively happen and in a furious and aggressive way. With that second meaning the use of the expression "a cobra vai fumar" has been retained in Brazilian Portuguese until the present times, although few in the younger generations realize the origin of the expression.
Read more about this topic: Brazilian Expeditionary Force
Famous quotes containing the word nickname:
“A nickname is the heaviest stone that the devil can throw at a man. It is a bugbear to the imagination, and, though we do not believe in it, it still haunts our apprehensions.”
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830)