Word(s) of the Day: Il and Lo

This is not strictly about the words il and lo themselves. In an everyday context they are simple articles, generally meaning ‘it’ or ‘the’. However, I learnt today that if two people are walking together, one tall, one short, you can say ‘articolo il‘. As there is a little person (an ‘i’) and a tall person (an ‘l’). To say ‘articolo lo‘, then, has a guessable meaning: a tall ‘l’ and a short, fat ‘o’.

I love this pair of phrases, and wish there was an English equivalent. If, on the off-chance, a little person is walking alongside a person with their arms sticking outwards, I could say ‘ha! article it’. Might be waiting for a while. And would probably keep it to myself as well.

Word of the Day: Pigro

I have got a bit lazy with keeping up-to-date with this, which leads me to making this interim post.

It is surely crucial to know how to describe oneself in another language. Alas, this is where I picked up pigro: lazy. I am also particularly taken with it because it reminds me of a pig rolling around, and never quite making it onto their feet. Not because I regularly find myself in that state of lethargy or anything.

Word of the Day: Scarpetta

The literal meaning of una scarpetta is nothing special – a little shoe.

All well and good, but what is better is fare la scarpetta (do the little shoe). In this sense it means to clean your plate with a bit of bread: sinking it into leftover sauce – presumably like a little shoe disappearing in the mud.

Not the most saliva-inducing imagery, nor is bread what I immediately think of having after a massive pasta dinner. But the sauce is always worth bloating a bit more for and it feels criminal to waste even a dribble.

It is fun, too, to traipse around one’s plate with child-like abandon. Like jumping in puddles, but at the comfort of the dining table.

Word(s) of the Day: Genitori vs Genitali

I was wising up on my falso amici [fake friends], when I discovered this confusing state of affairs:

Genitori means parents. Genitali  means genitals.

As there’s not much chance of having one without the other, I suppose the similarity does make sense…

Maybe I am getting ahead myself, with my inability to even form simple sentences yet, but what if I accidentally ask someone how their genitali are doing?

An imminent self-fulfilling prophecy, I fear.