Hotel and accommodation

The twentieth entry is ruidoso, glossed here as « noisy », and the gloss is right for the sentence beside it and wrong for half of what a guest will want to say next. Portuguese keeps one adjective for a stretch of ground English cuts in two, and the cut is not a matter of degree. « Noisy » is a verdict on unwanted sound, and it goes on the thing that makes it or the place that holds it: a noisy street, a noisy fan, a noisy hotel. It says the sound is a nuisance, which is why nobody praises a band for being noisy. « Loud » is a measurement, and it goes on the sound itself or on the person producing it: a loud bang, loud music, a loud voice. A loud street is not English, and a noisy voice is not either. So a rua é ruidosa is a noisy street, while a televisão está muito ruidosa comes out as the television is too loud. At the desk the complaint is always about noise and never about loudness, so the word to reach for there is « noisy ».