In Portuguese mancómetro is a very useful word. It means a measure by which one knows, or does not know, how he/she is adversely affecting/relating to others/groups. The lower the number, the more out-of-reality this person would be.
Is there a similar expression in English, or any other language y'all're familiar with?
Well, if there's *not a word for this, there should be. Surely there exists something along the lines of 'autosociometry'? but this would leave out the necessary component of specifically gauging the *negative affect that a person's presence and/or interactions have on the subject group and/or its entitativity (just learned that word through my search).
i thought maybe there'd be a "-gnosis" word, but came up empty there too.
i suppose "dysfunctional" sums the state nicely, but it certainly doesn't give even a nod to one's ability to self-measure same.
how 'bout a neologism: autostigmagnosis[-ometer?)
how does it literally translate? the "metro" part is obvious, but what does "manco" mean?
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.
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
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.
"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?
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.
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? )
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.
"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.
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.
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.
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