There is no doubt that those of us who us heard praia since childhood, and have used use it since decades are fine with it. But many are not aware. So even of there are three words it should be accepted. For sure colloquially.
For sure to my ears, praia fits well with Portuguese. But as pointed above such a construct may not be a part of the collective awareness. They will settle for beach, as they perhaps would for bread. Pau, may be an inhouse joke in some houses and families. But others may settle for both bread and pau making specific distinctions in terms of their awareness and fondness and yes rigor. This expresses likewise the manner in which some of us have settled for various words for beach. The Japanese use Roricon for Lolita Complex, and Sekuhara for Sexual Harassment. Se+ku(xu, dropping al; retaining only the first two syllables in Sexual, Seku) +hara (first two syllables in harassment). They do not have the x consonant so substitute it with k. This example is given simply to show how the Japanese have molded, or modelled words in line with their sense and sensibility. We have to work out what works for us, AND accept that we are too far gone to expect consonances in how we see language and thought. Venantius J Pinto On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 2:44 AM, Camillo Fernandes < camillofernan...@hotmail.com> wrote: > Regarding the query about the Konkani word for beach, my uncle used > PRAIA which is Portuguese. I feel it is better to use this word rather > than the English one BEACH as Konkani has many words taken from > Portuguese i.e. pau. > > Camilo Fernandes > -- +++++++++++++ Venantius J Pinto