ó Manuel

Sir, I am Brazilian and worked in debt capital markets covering Iberia for many years. Your Lex note “Portugal” (March 26) makes perfect sense from an economic point of view (annexation by Portuguese-speaking Brazil) but culturally it strikes a raw note with the Portuguese because they have little left of what was once Portugal from a cultural point of view.

Brazilian television has transformed the Portuguese language beyond recognition creating a generational divide, the equivalent of kids in London speaking with a Texan accent. We have digested their colonial influence and spat it back out in a very (Latin) politically incorrect way: the Portuguese are the lesser cousins and have always been the subject of rude jokes in Brazil.

I think in the US it would be the equivalent of making jokes about the Poles, in England about the Irish or Scottish, in France about Belgians. In Brazil, if you want to say someone is slow, you can call him Manuel, which is the most common or typical name in Portugal.

If you do not speak Portuguese I am not sure you can imagine the scale of the harassment that Brazilians inflict daily on Portuguese national pride, out of spite and relentlessly. It is a national sport, part of being Brazilian. Although most Portuguese have joked for years that your suggestions were the way to go, to make it official is very painful indeed.

Cartas ao FT, por Viridiana Monticelli