At the airport

Tenth on this list is o excesso de bagagem, in o excesso de bagagem custa doze euros por quilo, and at the desk the arithmetic is the same in either language. What each language did with the word away from the desk is not. English lifted « baggage » off the scales long ago and hung it on people, and every one of those uses is unkind. Somebody who comes with baggage is carrying a history that will cost you something; emotional baggage is the weight of what went wrong before; and unpacking your baggage is what a therapist asks for. Portuguese made the very same move and landed on the opposite side of it. A bagagem of a person is what has been accumulated and can be drawn on, so tem uma grande bagagem cultural is praise, and a candidate is glad to have it written about them. The literal sense is identical, the metaphor is identical, and the verdict folded inside the metaphor is reversed: one language packs a burden into the suitcase, the other packs a training. Only o excesso is bad news in both.