Italian Slang Dictionary: intro A B C D E F G I L M N O P Q R S T U V X Z
Zinne
[TZIN-neh] Tits.
Zittire, Zitto
[zit-TEAR-ay, ZEET-toh] To shut (someone else) up, adjective for shut up. Fairly rude when used as a command.
Category Archives: Italy
Italian Slang: A
Italian Slang Dictionary: intro A B C D E F G I L M N O P Q R S T U V X Z
Accidente, un
[ah-chee-DEN-tay] A darn thing, usually used in the negative, as in Non mi ricordo un’accidente – I don’t recall a thing. In normal useage, an accident (as with a car) is un incidente.
QT adds: Ti venisse un accidente – “May you have an accident,” an ill-wish which apparently refers more to serious illness (heart attack, stroke, etc.).
Accidenti
[ah-chee-DEN-ti] A mild expletive, in a league with drat, darn, heck.
Apprezzamento
[ah-pretz-a-MEN-toe] Not a rude word, this translates roughly as “appreciation” or “comment”, but it’s used most often in apprezzamenti pesanti (pesanti = “heavy”) for the kind of “appreciative” comment made to a woman that would cause her husband, boyfriend, etc., to react angrily. Such comments are often followed, in the news reports, by violence.
Arrapare
[ar-ra-PAR-ray] To become sexually excited.
The graffiti scribbled on this poster says: “Would you get hot (ti arraparesti) if this girl was your daughter? – This is too much. – www.cracra.org”
Attaccabottoni
[ah-TAHK-ka-bot-TONE-ee] Literally a “stick-to-buttons”. A long-winded bore. Someone who “grabs you by the lapel” and won’t let go. This term is not particularly rude, except to the person to whom you apply it!
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Caffeination: Italians and Their Coffee
music: Manhattan Transfer – “Java Jive”
Although Italy has some of the best coffee in the world, Italians don’t drink nearly as much of it as you might think. My own routine, which I suspect to be fairly average, is:
- one at home at 7:30, before starting my commute
- one fairly soon after arriving at work, around 10 am
- one right after lunch
If I’m having a particularly sleepy day I might have one sometime between 10 and 1 (pre-lunch) and/or, very rarely, one in the late afternoon. Five a day is unusual for me, and many people I know consider four overdoing it ¬– though I did talk to a barista once who said he used to drink 12 espressos a day.
Most people I’ve observed in this part of the country (Milan / Lombardia) stop with the post-lunch espresso. Some have an espresso after dinner, especially if they plan to be out later, but I don’t see many ordering post-dinner coffees in restaurants. At home we only make coffee at night if dinner guests want it for their own drives home.
It’s true that espresso is concentrated, but, per average serving, it contains less caffeine than American coffee, and Italians do not have the American habit (which I sometimes miss) of keeping a warm mugful on your desk or table and sipping at it for hours.
When foreigners come to Italy, the clash of caffeine culture can be funny. A Swedish colleague once apartment-sat for us in Milan. As part of his orientation, I took him downstairs to our usual coffee bar (which also made excellent gelato), introduced him, and asked them to treat him nicely. They talked for months afterwards about his peculiarities: he habitually ordered double espressos, which baffled them. For starters, a double won’t fit in the standard single espresso demi-tasse cup, and they disliked the aesthetics of serving espresso in a cappuccino cup. He also mostly lived on gelato that month (it was August), which, while they appreciated the compliment to their gelato, is not standard Italian behavior!
The other day, I overheard a young Italian woman on the train discussing a foreign guest who had visited their home. “We made a moka of coffee, and she thought it was all for her. She drank the whole thing!” “I could never drink that much coffee!” exclaimed her friend, “I wouldn’t sleep for days!”
When Italians make coffee at home, they most often use the moka, a screw-together pot you put on top of the stove. These come in capacities from 1 to 10 cups, and a family may own several sizes, to cope with various occasions. But a four-cup moka makes less coffee than you’d find in a Starbucks “tall” – no wonder the American guest was confused.
Yes, you can get fancy home espresso machines here just as you can in the US, but, to make consistently good espresso, they require a high degree of maintenance and skill. Most Italians can’t be bothered, especially when they can get better coffee for far less fuss at the bar down the street. (Though a few make it a point of fetishistic pride to be able to make at home a coffee “just as good as you get at the bar.” In counterpoint, some espresso machines in bars are decorated with the slogan “REAL coffee you can only get at the bar.”)
Coffee made in the moka can also involve more or less fuss, and is quite a different thing from bar espresso. It took me years to acquire the taste, and I still haven’t learned to make it consistently good. But I got tired of trying to reproduce the consistency and flavor of good American-style filtered coffee. I think that this winter, when I want a big hot drink, I’ll stick to chai.
Escape from America
I recently ran across a reference to a forthcoming new book, “Getting Out: Your Guide to Leaving America,” by Mark Ehrman. Here’s the blurb for it from Amazon:
Had enough?
Whether you find the government oppressive, the economy spiraling out of control, or if you simply want adventure, you’re not alone. In increasing numbers, the idea is talked about openly: Expatriate.
Over three hundred thousand Americans emigrate each year, and more than a million go to foreign lands for lengthy stays.
“Getting Out shows you where you can most easily gain residence, citizenship, or work permits; where can you live for a fraction of the cost of where you’re living now; and what countries would be most compatible with your lifestyle, gender, age, or political beliefs.
So if you’ve had enough of what they’re selling here and want to take your life elsewhere – well, isn’t that the American way? At any rate, it’s not illegal. Not yet, anyway.
I have not and probably won’t read this book, so can’t vouch for its usefulness, accuracy, etc. But it’s highly interesting that it is being published (and marketed in this way), and I will be curious to see how well it sells.
Not surprisingly, many people write to me because they’ve found my website while searching for information about how to move to Italy. A largeish proportion of these, and others who share their goal, phrase it in exactly those terms: “I want to get out of America.”
You may think: “Who cares? They may be wanting to get out, but there are tens of millions of immigrants wanting to get IN.”
Yes, but” Those trying to get in are mostly economic migrants, for whom America is still the land of opportunity – or at least a lot more opportunity than where they came from. Even minimum wage and no health care at Wal-Mart looks better than starvation.
But the people looking to get OUT of America are most often liberal intellectuals, educated people who have much to give their country, but find themselves increasingly troubled by what America seems to be losing: freedom, dignity, tolerance, righteousness (as opposed to self-righteousness – got plenty o’ that).
I am already expatriated, but in the last few years, I’ve had several moments in which I thought of renouncing my American citizenship. Abu Ghraib was the first: an America that tortures is not the America I thought I knew. (And now: go ahead – it’s legal!) The second moment was Hurricane Katrina. An America that can leave thousands of its own people to die in squalor and think it’s doing a good job – that’s not the America I loved.
And now habeas corpus is effectively suspended. On any visit to America, my (non-citizen) husband could be thrown into prison on the government’s whim, for any or no reason, and held without trial, even tortured, indefinitely. It could even happen to me, a regular US citizen.
I could turn a blind eye – my family don’t have Muslim names or brown skins, surely we’re safe? But I have friends with both brown skins and Muslim names. What happens to them, happens to me. And what’s happening now should not happen to anybody. In civilized countries, even terrorists get trials. Hell, even in Iraq, Saddam bloody Hussein is having a trial with a lawyer for his defense. How can America – ostensibly bringing the fruits of democracy to Iraq – do less?
Something is seriously broken in America. No wonder that many “native Americans” are thinking about getting out.
Your thoughts?
Windy Sunday on Lake Como
A beautiful windy Sunday on Lake Como – perfect weather for kite boarding, wind surfing, and sailing – and video.
