In a recent Facebook post someone said they never wanted to see the word: “unprecedented” again, and another added: “tremendous.” They were, of course, referring to certain political dialogue.
We arrived here when our son was 3. Our neighbors had two children and they would all play happily together. Our son was very energetic and at times the other parents would laugh and shake their heads, “e’ tremendo eh”. Tremendous, I thought? Great, terrific? No, it means, you’re a little terror, in a good way if it’s said with a smile, or at worst, terrible or a real Brat! Today, that would be an understatement, fortunately no longer in reference to our son.
Many languages have “false friends” similar words that do not mean the same thing in different languages.
My husband, even after speaking french, italian and english for 25 years, had occasional lapses into other languages. One night he was talking to a french friend about additives, you know the stuff they put in food to preserve it , “préservatifs” he said. We all had a good laugh. In french and italian “préservatifs” , “preservativi” means condoms, and that’s certainly not what he meant.
A young boy I once knew, got his head stuck in the curved arm of a rattan arm chair, as they do, and yelled “ Help! I’m castrated!” directly translating the italian word incastrato, caught.
Long after buying a house in Italy and all the administrative correspondence, I still feel that when I address a letter to: Egregio Signor, I’m making a flagrant error. No, I’m addressing it to: Distinquished Sir.
It has been on my mind a lot lately as I read the word for hospitalized, which in italian is: ricoverato, which is so close to recovered, but yet so far.
We’re still not out of the woods yet, although the statistics are better, many more are recovering, and only slowly but surely consistently improving.
Time and patience
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