Arguing and objecting in Portuguese

The forty-ninth entry is abster-se, and on its own it does the work that English divides between two verbs. « Abstain » has narrowed almost to two settings. One is the vote: a member abstains, the minutes record an abstention, and Três membros preferiram abster-se is exactly that sense. The other is food and drink, so that somebody who does not drink abstains from alcohol. Outside those two the word sounds like a committee paper, and « he abstained from asking » is not how anybody speaks. For every other act English reaches for « refrain », which is the verb of the notice asking passengers to refrain from smoking, and of the person who holds something back on purpose. Portuguese draws no such line. Abster-se de votar, abster-se de fumar and abster-se de comentar are one verb with one preposition, and nothing in the form says which of the two English verbs is wanted. The choice therefore has to be made on the way out, by looking at the thing abstained from: the ballot and the bottle take « abstain », and an action takes « refrain ».