O.k., now that I’ve caught your attention with the cryptic title I suppose I’d better explain myself. There are certain words, or variations on words in Italian that can be infuriatingly difficult to remember. Very often, they are small words that seem like they should be straightforward, such as the dreaded ‘ci’. And this only seems to add to the frustration.

Take hair for example. Why does hair have to be so darned complicated? Let’s have a look:

Firstly, hair, as in the stuff I used to have a lot of on my head when I was younger, is plural in Italian: capelli = hairs, hence da giovane avevo i capelli lunghi  (‘when I was young I had long hair’, yes, I was a bit of a hippy in the 70’s!), or mi piacciono i tuoi capelli così (I like your hair like that) N.B. Don’t forget to pluralize anything that refers to capelli, such as mi piacciono = ‘they please me’, or Annalisa ha i capelli rossi (Annalisa has red hair).

Non-head hairs are peli, e.g. porca miseria, la mia felpa blu è ricoperta di peli di gatto! (pig misery, my blue fleece is covered in cat hairs!) Yes, dark colours are a nightmare when you’ve got six cats!

We only use capello (head hair singular) or pelo (non-head hair singular) to refer to a single hair: hai un capello lungo sulla giacca che non è il mio, dove sei stato stanotte? (you’ve got a long hair on your jacket and it’s not mine, where were you last night?).

But confusingly, and there’s always a confusing ‘but’ in Italian, pelo also means fur or pelt. So, Bella ha un bel pelo morbido means ‘Bella (one of the six feline culprits) has got lovely soft fur’ rather than ‘Bella has a single lovely soft hair’ (poor thing!). Speaking of lovely soft fur …. block your ears pussy cats and vegetarians … hmmm, that’s everyone in this house!….  una pelliccia is a fur coat.

We use the colloquial word pelato to mean bald or hairless, however, the word calvo (bald) is more correct.

Well, you’re thinking, that doesn’t seem so complicated. But wait, I haven’t finished yet, we’ve still got:

cappello, hat, easily confused with capello (a single head hair)

cappella, which isn’t a female hat or hair but a chapel (hence cantare a cappella, literally to sing in the chapel style, i.e. without instrumental accompaniment)

pelle, human or animal skin, (no relation to the famous Brazilian football player). N.B. the skin of fruit and vegetables is called la buccia but although we say sbucciare le patate (to peel the potatoes) we also use pelare (to peel, remove hair).

pelle, soft leather, as distinct from cuoio, hard leather. Shoes were traditionally made with the uppers in pelle, and the sole in cuoio  (++++++++ Whoops! Mimì the cat just walked across the keyboard and left her ‘prints’, grazie per il tuo contributo, Mimì).

Confused, don’t worry, ci sono passato anch’io! (I’ve been there myself!)