Oct. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Brazil's Federal District Governor Jose Roberto Arruda ``fired'' the present participle from his administration, citing inefficiency.

``The present participle is hereby fired from all federal district entities,'' the governor wrote in a decree posted on the government's Web site last night. ``As of today, it is forbidden as an excuse for INEFFICIENCY.''

Banning the verb form, which ends in ``ndo'' in Portuguese (``ing'' in English), was done to prevent government officials from using continuous tenses to obscure progress -- or the lack of it.

``I find it somewhat ludicrous,'' Dario Borim, chairman of the Department of Portuguese at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. ``It's a matter for linguists to discuss not for politicians.''

Decree No. 28.314 was issued to end vague promises by government officials, such as: ``We'll be taking steps,'' Globo news agency reported, citing aides to Arruda it didn't identify by name.

Almost all of Brazil's 190 million citizens speak Portuguese, the world's seventh-most spoken language. More people speak Portuguese in South America than Spanish, the official language of the region's other major economies, including Argentina, Chile and Colombia.

Seven years ago, former lower house president Aldo Rebelo sought to pass a bill prohibiting media and government agencies from using foreign words such as ``show'' and ``kitchenette'' to protect the language.

Arruda, an engineer by training, is a former lower house representative and was leader of the Senate for former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso's Brazilian Social Democracy Party.

The Federal Distric encompasses Brasilia, the country's modernist capital built in the 1950s, and surrounding cities such as Taguatinga.

To contact the reporters on this story: Carlos Caminada in Sao Paulo at at ccaminada1@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: October 2, 2007 16:49 EDT