When I saw it, I thought that mancómetro was a new name for a dirty underground system ...

Then I realised it would have to be "Manky Metro". Not the same at all, I do agree.

Wracking my brains for an English equivalent but without success. Is Mancómetro used in English? If not then I am with the others in adopting it. I'd love to know the correct usage, however.

Mancómetro ... I'd love to know the correct usage

If any -- because as best I can tell, there is no such word.

It generates zero hits in google, and it doesn't appear in any of the four portuguese-english dictionaries I checked. [Oxford; Langenscheidt's, and the on-line translators of altavista and google] ASp, could you have misspelled? or perhaps hypothesized a concept, out of an amateur's interest in psychology?

I think it possible that search of Internet for mancómetro yields nothing just means that the Brazilians haven't yet put much onto Internet. I'll bet they have many more clever phrases we haven't heard yet. I shudder to think what my mancómetro score might be.

> I shudder to think what my mancómetro score might be.<

Well, no, Doc...I think in your case the effect is quite the opposite! You just hide behind that curmudgeonly facade here, but you ain't foolin' nobody!

Now in the other case...well, you know what they say: "If the glove fits, wear it!"

When I finally thought to search for "Brazil dictionary" I got one. But searching it for "mancómetro" yielded only: 1.manómetro
2.barómetro
3.manómetros
4.barómetros
5.marmelo

To what "other case" are you referring, whit?

I have no idea if this is the root, but I have to say that in Italian there is the verbe mancare , related to the meaning of to miss, but in the reverse order, I mean that mancare should be "to be missed" ( does it exists?)

Anyway, mancometro sounds to me as a measure of something missing.

"manque. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English ...
... from Old Italian mancare, from manco, lacking, from Latin mancus, maimed, infirm."

caradea asks, but what does "manco" [in portuguese] mean?

According to http://google.com/language_tools?hl=en, it means "lame".
(That site gives no translation for "mancó" with the accent.)

manqué
\ma{n}-kay\ [F] - short of or frustrated in the fulfillment of one's aspirations or talents (a poet manqué)

http://home.mn.rr.com/wwftd/

"manquer" in French means to miss. I don't know what metro means in Portugese but Cap is correct for here - metro is an underground train. If I had to translate based on similar words, I'd say mancometro meant the person missed the train.

How do you pronounce the o with the accent aigue. (I can't find it on my keyboard). Can you give me a similar sound in English ASp?

There is a country saying that someone was behind the door when the brains were passed out. Explication by PM if needed.

How do you pronounce the o with the accent aigue

If it's anything like Spanish it just means that's where the accent goes despite rules to the contrary. No other pronunciation change. In Spanish the vowels are all pretty much pronounced the same accented or unaccented; I know Portuguese does some funny things, though.

I don't think there's any connection with subways; metro is usually an abbreviation for metropolitan [rail system] or something like that. I suspect it means measure here. Might be the whole thang is the measure of how much somebody misses the point.

misses the point.
Of course, unless "mancómetro" is actually a word, a discussion of its supposed meaning is pointless and "manco" [lame].

I'm prepared to believe that there is such a word, that just hasn't gotten into the dictionaries available to us. Just as I had to really hunt to find "l'ésprit de l'escalier", and "treppenwitz". I think it is clever enough to warrant its adoption. It could really be fun to ask somebody with room temp IQ "What's your mancómetro?"

Okay, this isn't responsive to your query, ASp, but i thought i'd share:

i spoke to a friend of mine who was born and raised in Rio, and she didn't recognize the expression at all, but a couple of hours later she called back, saying the curiousity had gotten the better of her so she'd called her sister (who evidently still lives there). anyhow, her sister recognized it immediately, and said it's a "colloquial" term (wow, your portuguese must be *awesome, Anna!), and she added this bit of info:

"manca" means (as she put it) "people who don't have a clue". the example she used was a person who arrives uninvited during the dinner hour and has absolutely no idea that their presence is intrusive. i asked for a usage example and she offered this: "Ele neo se manca", which supposedly means "he's a clueless git". (or am *i the clueless git, and she's tricked me into writing "i'm a clueless git" in portuguese, since she knows i don't speak a word of it? )

aha! a psychological-measurement term derived from the colloquial lingo!

And let's be sure we get it straight which is desirable, a high number or a low number.

If it means useless git, why don't they just say "useless git?"

Whew! I'm glad that's settled.

Mancometro: portugese street talk 1. a measure of the cluelessness of gits. 2. a measure by which one knows, or does not know, how he/she is adversely affecting or relating to others/groups. The lower the number, the more out-of-reality this person would be.

Done. Now if only The Great Scorer doesn't come to score against our name by declaring it "incestuous", we can proceed.

I, for one, have been busy. I have prepared a Mancometro Achievement Test( I call it the M.A.T.). Using Doctor Bill and myself as guinea pigs I pulled up our last 100 respective posts and examined responses by the rest of the group inasmuch as negative comments, snide remarks, and subtle insults were concerned.

Going in, I calculated that Doctor Bill had a self-esteem rating of 2, [scale 0-10], I, myself, went in with a more self assured rating of 8. Boy was I surprised. The all seeing board rated me a 2, and Doctor Bill an 8.

But with the middling number being 5, we both scored 3 on the MAT test.

I intend to try to bring my mancometro ratings up in the future by sucking up a bit to some of the big dogs of the board. Doctor Bill, I would advise, to suck a little bit more down.

>If it means useless git, why don't they just say "useless git?"

Welcome back, insel! Glad to see ya! Good to see you're getting your two "gits" worth in again!

"welcome back inselpeter, many missed you."
Yes, yes, yes! So GLAD to see you posting again!
Whit., I don't think insel has two gits' worth--just good "sense"...(A reach, I know.)

Milum, I am shocked! Doctor Bill, I would advise, to suck a little bit more down.

Milum, I am shocked! Doctor Bill, I would advise, to suck a little bit more down.

GP, police thyself!

Doctor Bill, I would advise, to suck a little bit more down.

Dear Jackie: Milum has flattered me enough, I kept my fingers crossed about the "s" word.

Thanks all for kind welcomes. For worse -- or more likely better (depending on who's keeping the MATs ;) ) -- I won't be around too very much. I'm still busy as whatever busy is finishing up one thing and getting ready then to finish up another.

Speaking of useless gits. I couldn't figure out how to reply just now. It took about five minutes to remember you have to log in. And when you do, the number of new posts is frightening.

New Yorkers, in case you hadn't heard, are back to being our inconsiderate and self-centered selves. The price of civility is just too high.

Un beso all around,
IP

I just met a young Brazilian couple from Rio (both lawyers, but nice anyway) who confirmed what ASp and caradea posted on Feb. 28 and March 1. According to this couple, "manca", meaning limp (as a verb), is commonly used a slang for a bit "off"; mancometro is a fairly unusual slang term.