tedgale

KT and Rbrazill:

Very funny if very naughty!

You'll get this thread frozen!

cmt

Tedgale: Nah, I think the the censors are monolingual. I told a story recently in which I quoted what an enraged fellow passenger yelled when he and his wife were diverted to different flights on different airlines. The fact that it didn't get the thread frozen tells me the censors couldn't understand Italian.

rbrazill

Busted.

orangecrush

how about pasticciotti?

giro

Uffa!

tedgale

Orangecrush: I suspect that people who have got to the point of using the "diminutivo" and the "cresciutivo" in Italian have already mastered the easy business of phonetics

orangecrush

look, i was just asking because there are obviously discrepencies. no need to question my abilities

cmt

What discrepancies?

StCirq

orange: I think the point is that Italian pronounciation is about as regular as pronounciation gets - there are no discrepancies. SO, given the very clear descriptions given, it should be a no-brainer to sound out pasticciotti.

tedgale

I think you misunderstood both the meaning and the tone of my message.

orangecrush

StCirq, thats what I meant - discrepencies between the ways americans THINK things are pronounced. All I know of italian is what I have learned from older relatives and I was just curious to see if I've been saying it correctly all these years.

I don't understand the big deal. Everyone answered the "bruschetta" question happily (which I think was quite obvious anyway) and you guys give me a hard time for asking about the double c's. For someone who's not a native speaker things arent obvious as they are to an Italian...much like I've heard older Italians mess up English.

cmt

Another example of the really mangled Italian food words. In this weekend's newspaper, there's a review of a restaurant. The reviewer writes about "a biscotti"! That's as bad as "one cannoli" or "one panini." It's especially bad because this is not a small town newspaper, and because there must be editors who can catch these things if the writer slips.

Neil_Oz

"Brewshetta" annoys me too (it's rife in Australia). On the other hand, I have to ask myself why I should expect native English speakers to have such a grip on foreign pronunciations that they can distinguish between the 'sch' in 'schwein' and 'bruschetta'? And do we really expect a waitress to say, "Right, not a problem, two bruschette!"?

I do think that many Italians and Italophiles are being just a bit precious in fussing over the inevitable Anglicisation of imported Italian words. English is famous, or notorious, for importing and nationalising words from all over the world. Initially a foreign word tends to be pronounced somewhat "correctly", but sooner or later it takes on English characteristics. This adaptability and flexibility is one of the strengths of English. Why do we tolerate and even celebrate linguistic diversity in English but obsess over the "correct" pronunciation of words that are being stirred into the melting pot of our language? They've been removed from one linguistic context and placed into another - of course they're going to change.

An Italian-Australian lady of my acquaintance was lamenting the increasing popularity of "lo weekend" in the land of her birth, not to mention a distressing increase in the number of people impolitely using "tu" rather than "lei". My reaction, although expressed more politely, was "Get over it". If my ancestors had been that insular we'd still be speaking an obscure German dialect, not to mention having to worry about when to use "thou".)

I see this is a different matter from using the same words correctly in their country of origin, which is only sensible as well and also common courtesy.

cmt

Neil, I'm much less upset than most people over the pronunciation of bruschetta, and I agree that sometimes are being a bit too precious getting worked up about how some part-time waiter pronounces it. It has arguably become an American word (and an Australian word and a British word, maybe, and not ne cessarily the same word in each country), and can have a different meaning and pronunciation in foreign countries, like the US. (For example, here, jars of salsa-like condiment are being labeled "bruschetta," so many people think the topping is bruschetta.)

But, I still do object to the mangling of words like biscotto/biscotti, cannolo/cannoli, panino/panini. If we're anglicizing the word, then OK, say one cannolo, two cannolos, one panino, two paninos, if we really must anglicize. But this one biscotti/two biscottis business just makes no sense at all. It's pseudo-foreign and totally wrong and jarring and can't be excused as merely anglicization. My complaint is not about the customers, or even most of the waiters and waitresses, but about the restaurant owners, bakery owners, newspaper food columnists, etc., who should either know better or be conscientious enough to learn how to write the names of foods that their serious and substantial livelihoods are based on.

KT

Okay, how upset should we get that Italians say "due film" "due computer"?

These things happen when foreign words get adopted, as Neil points out.

By the way, does anybody think that bagels, samosas, or wontons would be correct in their respective languages of origin?

Shoot, I'm going to order a couple of pizze for the gang to eat while we're looking over the libretti from our favorite opere.

cmt

KT, I can't believe this thread is still going, but I think you're missing the point. If we say two pizzas, two cannolos, two paninos, two biscottos,then we'd be incorporated a foreign word into American English and treating it like any other regualr English word by adding an "s" to make it plural. That might sound strange at first, but it would make some sense, and wouldn't bother me once I'm used to it. I think "pizza" IS an ordinary English word now, and that's why "two pizzas" doesn't sound jarring. (However "one pizze"/""two pizzees" would make no sense at all and would be on a par with "one panini"/"Twp paninis&quot.

When people use a PLURAL foreign word (like "biscotti&quot as a singular, they seem to think they're using a fancy foreign word, not an plain old English word (like biscuit), so it sounds like they're trying to be pretentious and cutesie in using a foreign word. But it also sounds illiterate and just plain bizarre when they use the PLURAL form as SINGULAR and then add an "S" to this plural form when they really and truly mean plural.

cmt

KT:

I find that practice of using the plural word as a singular and then adding an s to the plural to make a plural just SCREACHES at me. But if you're immune the the screach, even though I know you know the grammar, I just can't explain it.

But back to a funnier topic: <<...or discussing somebody's age (e.g., "Quanti anni ha?&quot.>> Long ago when I was on a trip to Spain, I was attempting to have a conversation in Spanish, even though I really didn't know the language. I was referring to "years." Unfortunately, I momentarily forgot the distinction between ñ and n, which should be a lot more obvious than the difference between nn and n in Italian. But the nice man didn't even laugh at me. I was embarrassed when I played the conversation back in my mind a few minutes later and realized what I'd said.

kismetchimera

My compliments cmt you have a good knowledge of the Italian Grammar..
I am making you a Honorary Italian Citizen...
Congratulazioni,
AMC

kismetchimera

Ira, is the B&B Peterson located on the right of the train station (toward the Duomo) or on the left site.
I received a reply from the Peterson that a triple room is available, the price is Super..

kismetchimera

Oops, I replied to the wrong post..