Personal care and the hairdresser

The twenty-third entry is a esponja, and the object is the same in both languages while the word is not. English long ago made a verb of it, and the verb went straight to human behaviour. « To sponge » is to take from other people what one has not paid for and does not intend to pay for: somebody sponges off a brother for a year, sponges a meal, sponges cigarettes all evening. The person who does it is « a sponger », and in British English that is one of the harder things to be called without swearing, because it names a settled habit rather than a single act. The figure is exact and unkind — a sponge soaks up whatever is poured near it, gives nothing back until it is squeezed, and is perfectly dry again by morning. Portuguese keeps a esponja in the bathroom and reaches for other pictures to describe that person. So A esponja seca depressa na janela is about a sponge and nothing else, whereas an English sentence with the word in it has to be read twice before one knows whether it concerns washing or money.