“For the English to see”

As the world continues to go insane and there are increasingly shrill calls from woke cretins for Britain to pay ‘compensation’ to everyone for everything, I found this article in the Telegraph interesting:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/lists/untranslatable-phrases/

The one that caught my eye pertained to a phrase which is still commonly used in Brazil:

“Para os Ingleses ver”
The literal translation is “for the English to see” as in – “just for show”. It came about in the 1830s when the British navy was trying to enforce the abolition of slavery and the captains of slave ships coming into Brazil would hide the slaves below decks and put containers of other imports such as cotton for the inspectors to see.[i]

Basically: the Herculean efforts of the Royal Navy’s anti-slavery patrols are so deeply ingrained in the national culture of Brazil, that they are – to this day – still reflected in an everyday phrase.

And yet – according to a rogues’ gallery of grasping ‘academics’, money-sucking lawyers, and an utter moron at the UN[ii] – apparently the British tax payer owes £18 trillion in ‘reparations for the slave trade’ (a trade which Britain was almost entirely responsible for ending) to… err… well, someone.

NOTES:

[i] Telegraph, 27^th August 2023

[ii] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-66596790