The Boy from Gluck StreetA supposedly autobiographical song by Adriano Celentano which may have been Italy’s first environmental protest song, presented at the San Remo music festival in 1966. Note: Via Gluck in Milan, like many Italian streets, is named for someone famous, in this case composer Christoph Gluck. The further you go from city center, the more obscure or modern the historical figures so honored.
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| Questa è la storia di uno di noi anche lui nato per caso in via Gluck | This is the story of one of us, he, too, born by chance in via Gluck | ||
| in una casa fuori città gente tranquilla che lavorava | in a house outside the city, tranquil people who worked | ||
| La dove c’era l’erba ora c’è una città | Where once there was grass now there’s a city | ||
| E quella casa in mezzo al verde ormai dove sarà | And that house in the midst of the green, where is it now? | ||
| Questo ragazzo della via Gluck si divertiva a giocare con me | This boy from via Gluck had fun playing with me | ||
| Ma un giorno disse "Vado in città" e lo diceva mentre piangeva | but one day he said "I’m going to the city," and he said it while he was crying | ||
| Io gli domando "Amico non sei contento? Vai finalmente a stare in città" | I asked him "Friend, aren’t you happy? Finally you’re going to live in the city | ||
| Là troverai le cose che non hai avuto qui; | There you’ll find the things you never had here | ||
| Potrai lavarti in casa senza andar giù nel cortile!" | You can wash in the house without going down in the courtyard!" | ||
| "Mio caro amico", disse "qui sono nato e in questa casa io lascio il mio cuore | "My dear friend," he said, "I was born here, and in this house I leave my heart. | ||
| Ma come fai a non capire è una fortuna per voi che restate | You can you not understand what good fortune it is for you who remain | ||
| A piedi nudi a giocare nei prati mentre là in centro respiro il cemento | Barefoot to play in the field while I downtown will breathe cement | ||
| Ma verrà un giorno che ritornerò ancora qui | But one day will come when I will come back here again | ||
| E sentirò l’amico treno che fischia così "wa wa!" | And I’ll hear my friend the train that whistles like this: "wa wa!" | ||
| Passano gli anni ma otto son lunghi però quel ragazzo ne ha fatto di strada | The years pass but eight are long, but that boy has gone a long way. | ||
| Ma non si scorda la sua prima casa ora coi soldi lui può comperarla | But he never forgets his first home, now with his money he can buy it | ||
| Torna e non trova gli amici che aveva solo case su case catrame e cemento | He returns and doesn’t find the friends he had, just houses upon houses, tar and cement | ||
| Lò dove c’era l’erba ora c’è una città | There where once was grass now there’s a city | ||
| E quella casa in mezzo al verde ormai, dove sarà? | And that city in the midst of the green, where is it now? | ||
| Eh no, non so, non so perché, | Hey, no, I don’t know, I don’t know why | ||
| perché continuano a costruire, le case | they keep building the houses | ||
| e non lasciano l’erba… | and don’t leave the grass | ||
| Eh no, se andiamo avanti così, chissà | Hey, no, if we keep on like this, who knows | ||
| come si farà, chissà… | How we’ll manage, who knows… | ||
Thinking Badly of Others in Italy
A very indicative Italian saying:
A pensare male si fa peccato, ma si indovina [quasi] sempre.
This translates roughly as: “To think badly [of others] is a sin – but you’re nearly always right.”
Italian for English Speakers – in 1611
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Itlish: English Words in “Common” Use in Italian
Italian, like English and many others, accretes words from other languages. Often these are modern terms which have no easy equivalent in antique Latin or Greek roots.
For example: Ten years ago, Italians didn’t know how to refer to the process of scanning (a page, a photograph) using a scanner.
The correct word – digitalizzare (“digitalize”) – is unwieldy. An Italian speaker might instinctively invent a verb based on the foreign noun. But scannare already has a meaning in Italian: to slaughter! Which seems rather overkill for some poor, innocent document.
The compromise has been to use scannerizzare – “to scannerize”. Or else to say scannare with a wink, to acknowledge that the speaker knows that the usage is not correct.
clubs
There are lots of perfectly good words that one could use in Italian (associazione, circolo) for a group of people who gather to share a common interest, but for some reason the English “club” is also used.
However, for reasons which completely elude me, a short English u often ends up pronounced as eh by Italian speakers. Furthermore, English plurals are often abused by Italian speakers, being added or removed (with or without a superfluous apostrophe) without any consideration for real English usage. Hence the satirical music group Squallor could produce a song entitled Ti ho conosciuto in un clubs, where the final word is singular and is pronounced “clebs”.
stress
There is no good Italian equivalent for the modern use of “stress” in English. You could say sotto tensione to mean “under stress,” but stress is so commonly used that most people would now say sotto stress or stressato/a (stressed) and stressare (to make stressed, to cause stress).
handicap, handicappato
Usually pronounced without the initial h (there is no h in Italian) and, apparently, there is no native word for handicapped.
Italian Satirical Poetry
Monument to the poet Trilusso, in Roman dialect. Piazza Trilusso, Rome
For some fun political puns, look here
In the Shade
While I read my usual paper,
Sprawled in the shade of a [tree]
I see a pig and I say to him: “Goodbye, swine!”
I see a donkey and I say to him: “Goodbye, ass!”
Perhaps these beasts won’t understand me
But at least I have the satisfaction
Of saying things as they stand
Without fear of ending up in prison.
