Social work in Portuguese

The twenty-ninth entry is a situação de sem-abrigo, and the compound inside it is built the opposite way round from its English equivalent. English makes this kind of word with a suffix hung on the back of a noun: « home » plus « -less » gives « homeless », and the same mould yields « roofless », « jobless », « penniless » and « stateless ». Portuguese has no suffix in working order that does that job. It puts the preposition sem, without, in front of the noun instead, and ties the two together with a hyphen, so that sem-abrigo is literally without-shelter. The same mould gives os sem-terra and os sem-papéis, and, in quite another register, um sem-vergonha. Two consequences are worth holding on to. The compound is a noun as readily as an adjective, so os sem-abrigo names the people and not merely the condition, where English has to say « homeless people ». And this one does not change for number: the article counts and the word does not, so it is um sem-abrigo and os sem-abrigo, and the plural ending an English reader reaches for is exactly the slip to avoid.