Italian Language Blog

“Un giorno mia zia mi chiese di andare a pagare una bolletta alle poste. Io andai. Ma l’impiegato era lento e detti un pugno sul bancone. Nel movimento si vide la finta pistola che portavo sotto la cintura. L’impiegato credette che fosse una rapina e mi consegnò i soldi. Io pensai: “È così facile?”. E me ne andai col bottino.”

“One day my aunt asked me to go and pay a bill at the post office. I went. But the employee was slow and I banged my fist on the counter. When I moved, the fake pistol that I carried in my belt became visible. The post office employee thought it was a robbery and handed me the money. I thought: “Is it that easy?”. And I took off with the loot.” Thus began the criminal career of Luciano Lutring, "Il Solista del Mitra" (The Machine Gun Soloist)

Una Vita da Fuorilegge, Luciano Lutring,  Milano, 30 dicembre 1937 – Verbania, 13 maggio 2013.

Lutring’s parents had had other plans for their son. They dreamt of him becoming a famous violinist, but from an early age Luciano’s rebellious nature became apparent, and as he grew so did his interest in le belle donne e la bella vita (beautiful women and the good life). He acquired his first pistol, a Canadian Police Smith & Wesson, from a friend, although he was unable to get hold of any bullets for it. This was the pistol which he carried in his belt when he ‘accidentally’ robbed the post office, and set into motion his vita da fuorilegge (life as an outlaw). Here’s a video in which Lutring talks about his life, including a slightly elaborated version of the Post Office incident (at 3:35).

Click on the photo to watch the video

His parent’s wishes, however, were not completely wasted. Luciano found an excellent use for his violin case. It was just the right size for smuggling his mitra (machine gun) into the bank or shop which he intended to rob!  And it was this trick that earned him the soprannome (nickname) "Il Solista del Mitra".

Lutring‘s famous violin case and sub-machinegun

Lutring soon became a legendary character, famous for his taste in expensive hotels, designer cars, and beautiful women. He was viewed by the public as a "ladro gentiluomo" (“gentleman thief”), and was well know for the phrases in Milanese dialect which he pronounced at the scene of his crimes. One day, however, he committed a crime which was to have unexpected, and long lasting consequences.

During a brief ‘working’ holiday at the seaside town of Cesenatico, where tourists provided rich pickings, he stole a suitcase from a beautiful young Valtellinese model called Elsa Candida Pasini, resident in Zurich. According to Lutring, when he opened the case he found it filled with beautiful things, and realised that the two of them shared the same taste. Luciano decided to make the acquaintance of his victim, and having hung around outside her hotel for several hours, finally had the opportunity to present himself to her. Elsa, however, had no wish to talk to the ‘Italians’, who, according to her, were all thieves. In fact, only a few hours earlier, she told Luciano, one of these malavitosi (lit: badlives) had stolen her suitcase! Luciano intimated to her that he had a few connections in the local underworld, and would see what he could do to help. The following day he went back to Elsa’s hotel with good news: he had managed to ‘find’ her suitcase. Luciano and Elsa were married shortly afterwards.

To be continued …

I’m sure lots of you have a computer with an operating system (such as Windows) which has English set as the default language. You’ve probably also got an English tastiera (keyboard). This can sometimes make writing and spell checking in Italian a bit awkward. Well here’s the simplest method that I’ve found for easily switching between English and Italian on your PC:

Firstly, it’s important to distinguish between the display language and the keyboard input language. In fact, it’s not actually necessary to change the default display language on your computer to Italian. Our laptop, for example, has an Italian keyboard, which makes life simple when writing in Italian, but we still find it more convenient overall to have the default display Language (not the keyboard input language) set to English. The computer that I’m working on at the moment, on the other hand, has an English keyboard (when it finally wears out I’ll get an Italian one!) but with the right set up it’s no problem writing in Italian.

Here’s how to set up your Windows PC in order to easily switch languages:

Go to Start > Control Panel > Change keyboards and other input methods. Then in the ‘Region and language’ menu click on ‘Change keyboard’. In the ‘Text services and input languages’ menu that appears click on ‘Add’ and choose ‘English (United States)’ then in the drop down menu choose ‘United States-International’.
Now go to the Language Bar tab and make sure it’s set to: ‘docked in the taskbar’, and ‘show text labels in the language bar’.
Click on Apply.

Now when you want to write in Italian and use accents simply change the settings in your language bar (located on the bottom right hand corner of your screen in the taskbar) to ‘English United States’. Here’s how it looks on my Windows 7 PC.

As you can see I also have the Italian keyboard layout installed, which is useful when I attach an Italian keyboard to my PC. As I’m writing this blog in English however, I have my keyboard language set to EN English (United Kingdom). When I write in Italian I simply click on EN English (United States), which is actually ‘United States-International’ as explained above. Even if your default keyboard language is already set to United states you can still install ‘United States-International’ and easily switch from one to the other.

Adding accents when writing in Italian:

For the letters à, è, ì, ò, ù, (including capitals) simply press grave accent (`) to the left of the number 1 just above the Tab key and below Esc, then press the letter of your choice. E.g. ` plus e = è. One small complication is that the chiocciola (@) and the inverted commas (“) swap position. To make a chiocciola (@) press shift and  inverted commas (“ – located on the number 2 on my keyboard), and for inverted commas press shift and chiocciola (@) followed by the space bar (it’s a bit tricky to remember at first).
To make acute accents, such as the é in perché, simply hold down Right Alt and press the letter of your choice.

Spell Checking:

Now on to spell checking. I find this essential, especially when switching between English and Italian, which I have to do all the time. My blogging software is Windows Live Writer, and I have both English and Italian dictionaries installed. However, most of you will want to check your spelling when writing in text boxes, such as when adding a comment on a blog or a forum, or when you write e-mails. I prefer to use Mozilla Firefox as my web browser, with Thunderbird as my e-mail client. If you haven’t made the transition I strongly recommend it! Here are clear instructions from Mozilla on how to use their web based spell checker, and install other dictionaries, such as Italian: How to use Firefox Spellchecker. You will find similar setups for your preferred web browser, although Internet Explorer is a bit more complicated because it doesn’t have its own built in spell checker (unless it’s been added in the latest version).

Obviously, I can’t cover all keyboard variations and PC setups, but I hope that some of you will have found this article useful.

Today, our guest blogger Ambra Sancin writes abut idiomatic Italian expressions that use the word nuts. In case you missed Ambra’s previous blog ‘The Language of Coffee’, here’s a quick bio:

Ambra is a Sydney-based arts project manager in the cultural/not-for-profit sector and specialise in communications, marketing and producing public programs for festivals and government agencies. Born in Trieste, Italy, but whisked away to Australia as a baby, she has a special interest in working with diverse cultural and linguistic audiences, especially the Italian community. She professes to have catholic tastes and will foist her interests on you in her blog ‘The Good, the Bad and the Italian’:  films, food, felines, design, musical theatre and all things Italian.

Sopra: Castagne

Researching English and Italian idiomatic expressions about food for a recent blog post, I was surprised to find so many referred to nuts.

There’s in a nutshell; you’re a hard nut to crack; it drives me nuts; I’m a history nut; I’m nuts about you; can’t do something for nuts and my personal favourite: even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while. In Italy, they’re more specific about the types of nuts they throw around in their written and spoken words.

Pignolo (literal translation ‘pine nut’) is used to describe a pedantic or fussy person. It’s also a ‘fussy’ red grape grown predominantly in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region of northeast Italy (and so named because it produces low and uneven yields).

Castagna (literal translation ‘chestnut’) is by far the most versatile and interesting. The expression togliere le castagne dal fuoco (literally ‘to take the chestnuts out of the fire’) means ‘saving or solving one’s problem’. How wonderful then that the equivalent expression in English ‘to save somebody’s bacon’ also contains food. Then there’s cogliere in castagna (literally ‘to pick in chestnut’) – or ‘to catch someone red-handed’.

The feminine word castagna (the fruit of the chestnut tree) changes to the masculine castagno (chestnut tree): legno di castagno (chestnut wood) is very commonly used to make doors, window frames and furniture. At the beginning of the autumn the castagnatura (Italy’s September chestnut harvest) takes place, often followed by una castagnata (a chestnut festival where a wide variety of chestnut based products are eaten). The word castagna is also fashioned to create the word for the typical rustic Tuscan pancake ‘Castagnaccio’ (made with chestnut flour), although the pejorative suffix ‘accio’ makes it sound quite menacing!

Roasting chestnuts at a castagnata. Casalina in Valdatena, Lunigiana

Some of the traditional local home made dishes on offer, including, of course, caldarroste (roasted chestnuts)

To say someone ‘ha i capelli color castano/castagno’ gives them reddish brown hair (strangely, the ‘g’ can be dropped). And the brown colour marrone is identical to the word for the larger chestnuts which are often glazed to become the sweet marron glaçés.

I haven’t been able to ascertain the etymology of caldarroste, the Italian word for roasted chestnuts. It’s such a lovely word and conjures up the sights and smells of hot chestnuts sold in paper cones by vendors on city streets in winter.

To herald the start of the chestnut season here in Australia, I’m eating them like there’s no tomorrow. I’m also enjoying using the expression that old chestnut – or even better – that hoary old chestnut. It’s a shame there’s no Italian equivalent as it would be as beautifully floury as the nuts themselves!