A week or so ago I was wandering through the undergrowth at Marginal Revolution and saw that Tyler had made a little booboo. The sort of thing we all do at times. He was talking about Brazil and the newish President and asked whether Lulu was getting it right. I was a little puzzled : Lulu is a Scottish singer, once married to a Bee Gee with a number of walk on parts in Absolutely Fabulous. Ah, of course, a typo, he meant Lula. Trivial I know ( and corrected quickly ).
In the way that it’s the tiny things in life which cause most of the confusion I was wondering about this last night. Hang on a minute, “Lulas” is the Portuguese for “squid”. And lula is the singular, a squid. Do we really have the President of a proud and free nation called ” Squid “, a name which is well known enought that even the Economist calls him that ?
In the spirit of hard nosed real world research for which this blog is already justly renowned I determined to find out. A visit to the oracle ( Yes, the bartender. Surely you know that all bartenders know everything ? It’s there in the job description. Given that I am currently in Portugal it also seems a likely person to know what Lula means. ) and I have my answer. Lula does indeed mean ” squid ” singular. And the last part of his name, Silva, is apparently ” stinging nettle “.
So, the President of Brazil, Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva, is, in English, Louis Ignatius Squid of the Stinging Nettle.
No, we haven’t seen him in AbFab nor do we remember him being married to a Bee Gee.