In the lesson
Practice_Portuguese::A2::21_Pedir_Indicações::Um_Homem_Desorientado
they talk about the taxis being on strike. The word used is ‘greve’. We use the word ‘strike’ in baseball. And we have the idiom “three strikes and you are out” which I assume comes from baseball. Do you all use the same word when talking about baseball? I know it’s not as popular as futebol…
A very interesting question indeed:
In French, grève means “strike.” The word comes from “Place de Grève” in Paris (today called Place de l’Hôtel de Ville).
This square was located along the Seine and had a sandy/pebbly riverbank (grève in Old French meant “gravel shore, riverbank”).
Day laborers and workers without jobs would gather there to be hired.
When they refused to work, people said faire grève → literally “to be on the Grève.” Over time this became the general meaning “to go on strike.”
In Portuguese, greve was directly borrowed from French with the same meaning: labor strike.
( the english word ‘strike comes from the old english verb “strikan”
@chokers_gossips6h Not at all, we only use greve to refer to labor strikes (thanks for sharing the word’s origin, @Rijk). Baseball isn’t really a part of Portuguese culture, but as far as I know, we simply use the word strike in the context of the game, borrowed exactly as is from English.
In terms of idioms, “À terceira é de vez” would be a good one to learn. It’s not strictly positive or negative per se - we can use it rather broadly. So, idioms such as “three strikes and you’re out” or “third time’s a charm” can all be covered by it. In general, we do tend to use it more positively, though.
Interestingly, nobody knows how the English “to strike” came to mean to stop work as a part of a dispute. The most fun theory I’ve just read is that (from 1768) “striking one’s sails” meant a refusal by a ship to go to sea. You can make up lots of plausible derivations about striking a blow for justice, or against the bosses etc.
One, single volume, dictionary I looked at has 57 separate definitions of strike as a verb and a further 20 as a noun. It also lists 6 alternative spellings for each of the simple past tense and the part participle. It is clearly a word with history, but, unlike the French, we don’t really know what that history is.