Martial arts

The twenty-sixth entry is o grau de cinto, and the English word for the thing it is worn on has done far more work outside the gym than inside it. A belt is where a fighter carries what he has won, and out of that picture grew a family of expressions a Portuguese reader cannot build on o cinto. The most useful is « under your belt ». Whatever you have under your belt is safely acquired and cannot be taken back: three years under her belt, two languages under his belt, a hot meal under his belt. The image is of something swallowed or buckled in, not of something displayed, so it is always said of experience already had. The second is « below the belt », which comes straight out of the rules this list describes and now names a remark rather than a punch: « that was below the belt » is said in an argument and never in a ring. Portuguese answers the second with um golpe baixo and the first with nothing at all — it says já com três anos de experiência, and the belt drops out of the sentence.