Beekeeping

The twenty-sixth entry is substituir a abelha-mestra, and the verb inside it is one an English reader will very likely load backwards. Portuguese says substituir A por B, and the noun that follows the verb is the one being got rid of: in substituiu a abelha-mestra por uma jovem the old queen leaves and a young one takes the box. « Replace » is built the same way — one replaces the old queen with a young one — so that pairing is safe. « Substitute » is not. Its long-standing pattern is « substitute B for A », where the noun straight after the verb is the newcomer: whoever substitutes margarine for butter has thrown the butter out. The two verbs are mirror images, which is why « he substituted the queen for a young one » strictly says that a young queen was removed. Usage has muddied this and « substitute with » is now often heard, but the older pattern is still written and correct, so both are met. The safe habit before substituir is to reach for « replace » every time, and to keep « substitute » for sentences whose nouns one has counted.