Talarico is slang with registration in a notary’s office – 10/02/2024 – Sérgio Rodrigues

Millôr Fernandes’ advice about not amplifying the voice of imbeciles almost led me to look for another word as the topic of today’s column. It turns out that, for some reason, the noun “talaric” was already experiencing a peak in popularity before being called upon to increase the campaign’s decline for the City of São Paulo.

Talarico, for those who don’t know, is someone who steals or tries to steal their friend’s boyfriend — just like that, with all these parentheses and any more that you think is prudent to add. This is a relatively recent term, synonymous with the also informal fura-olho.

Slang of this type is never created at the Brazilian Academy of Letters. Its culture is popular, often linked to marginality, if not to the jargon of professional banditry. However, care must be taken when determining its origin.

A “PCC booklet” that circulated a few months ago, with dozens of “crime laws”, had as its first article a certain “stalking act”, which occurs “when the person involved tries to induce (sic, probably seduce) his partner another and it is not reciprocated”.

This seems to have been decisive in spreading information across various websites that the word was born as “prisoner slang” — who, as one can imagine, are a population especially vulnerable to talaricagem.

However, even if the success of the vocabulary fad in the chain is not discussed, its documented source points to a much wider dissemination.

Talarico is one of those rare slang terms that has a birth certificate. Zeca Pagodinho claims his paternity (in partnership with Serginho Procópio) in a 1992 samba, “Talarico Ladrão de Mulher”, which has as its chorus “I don’t talk to Talarico anymore/ Talarico stole my wife”.

In interviews, the samba singer from Rio has already declared that he chose the name of the “woman thief” — in fact, a surname of Italian origin — just for its sound, inspired by a character by comedian Agildo Ribeiro (1932-2018).

Interestingly, another popular expression of verifiable origin, this one even more successful and likely to be here to stay, exploded nationally in that same 1992.

More precisely on July 31st, when a secretary called Sandra Fernandes de Oliveira testified at the CPI that she was investigating the enrichment of then president Fernando Collor and, courageously, contributed to his being deposed.

“If this really ends in pizza, as some want, I think it’s the end of the country”, she declared, using the familiar expression, inspired by the Palmeiras sports radio host Milton Peruzzi (1913-2001), which she and her sister used to talk about in their youth. reconciliations with lovers.

Thus, what was a radio catchphrase of regional reach —and by that time already well forgotten— instantly became consecrated as the maximum expression of the old national vice of coziness and impunity.

The value of telling the story of popular expressions with factual rigor should not be underestimated. Between baseless legends and darkness, the most common thing is that you have no idea where they came from. Until then, Neves died — no one knows who it was.

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