In my blog ‘La Dolce Lingua part 2′, I wrote “when we Italians speak we like to use our whole body, not just our mouths!”
This, in fact, is an aspect of our language, indeed our culture, that is very hard to transmit in writing. However, I like a challenge, so I will now attempt the impossible by trying to teach you a few essential gesti (gestures) which, if you spend a bit of time here in Italy you will see used frequently.
Firstly though, as I always try to keep my blogs polite I will need to explain a common euphemism: ‘cavolo!’ (cabbage).
Cavolo is used in such expressions as ‘io non so un cavolo di niente’ (I don’t know cabbage nothing), ‘che cavolo dici?’ (what the cabbage are you talking about?), or ‘che cavolo vuoi?’ (what the cabbage do you want?). Here cavolo is a euphemism for an extremely common parolaccia (swear word) which also begins with ‘ca’ and ends with ‘o’ but has a couple of z’s in the middle. I’m sure a quick search on the internet will give you this wonderfully expressive word!
Allora!, here is today’s gesture: Using only one hand put all of the fingertips and thumb together so that your hand makes a kind of conical shape. Hold the conical hand in front of your body with the palm facing you and with the elbow and wrist bent to form an arc shape. Make sure you have the closed fingertips pointing towards you. Now move the the point of the ‘cone’ towards and away from your body using mainly the wrist but also a bit of arm movement. It may help if you imagine that your hand is a swan’s head with its pointed beak, and your arm is its neck, then imagine that the swan is pecking at but not touching your body. This gesture is the non verbal way of expressing ‘che cavolo vuoi?’ or ‘che cavalo dici?’, and depending on the seriousness of the situation the hand will be higher or lower, and the movement stronger or softer.
For example: Imagine that my friend Michele is telling me that a new and rather senseless regulation has just been passed (of course it would never really happen in Italy!) which will mean that he, as a negoziante (shopkeeper) will be out of pocket. When Michele explains to me the stupidity of this new regulation he uses the gesture described above but with his hand held just below his chest making a relatively gentle movement. In this case the gesture is fairly impersonal, it’s not directed at me but expresses his annoyance with the situation and the stupidity of the people who have devised the new regulation.
If on the other hand I was the bureaucrat who had devised this insidious new rule to rob Michele of his hard earned soldi (money), and I had come into his shop to ‘rompergli le scatole’ (break his ‘boxes’ – yet another euphemism) he may raise his hand up to face level and make a very emphatic gesture with wrist and arm in order to express ‘ma che cavolo vuoi’ in no uncertain terms!
Ciao Michele, grazie per il tuo aiuto con questo blog.
Comments:
Nathan:
Love it!!
Curtis:
Serena,
You described the body language beautifully. I just want to take a moment to thank you for your blog. I find it interesting every single time. Everytime I read the blog I find myself thinking yes that is exactly how it is. Keep up the great work!
Curt
Cathy:
I thoroughly enjoy all your blog entries! This one was really funny (in a good way) and I loved how you were able to write and bring the gestures alive. It’s always interesting to learn about the “bad” words in another language, plus I learned the word for cabbage, always a bonus!
Jeannet:
Salve Serena ,
Remarkable how people -sometimes- behave
themselves expressively. Me too always appreciate your blogs very much and learn of them.
About the described gesture in use in Italie
I knew this gesture so far yet only by ‘toccare’
ones forehead, which seems to be always
of the ‘highest’ form at once! Jeannet.
Vince Mooney:
Salve Serena:
You can see that gesture at least three times in the video by Mina and Celentano called, “Che t`aggia di”, which is a very cute animation. I find the Italian very hard to understand except for a few words. The gestures, however, are very understandable.
If you look carefully, I think the duck with the number 10 football jersey on several billboards is supposed to be Adriano – he was given a number 10 jersey at a big football game a few years ago as an honor. Also there is a wonderful parody of Sophia Loren’s part in the film “Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow”. This is a very interesting video.
Caveat: I did hear at least one ‘parolaccia’ that I heard all the time in Italy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyPDshwfwDY
Vince
Kate:
Serena- Sono appena tornata da Trieste, Italia, in cui ho trascorso un mese. Ho preso le lezioni Italiani ogni giorno dalla Societa’ Dante Alighieri, e ho cercato di sfruttare al massimo del ambiente di “total immersion.” Il mio Italiano ha migliorato molto, soprattutto il comprensione orale. Pero’, c’e’molto ancora da imparare. I’m going to switch to the mother tongue here because I’m in a bit of a rush. I just wanted to echo your comments about the gestures and some of the coloquial terms, e.g., proprio, senz’altro, ecco, appunto, etc. I heard those constantly while in Italy, and their proper use does certainly lend to a comfort with the language. Your blog is ‘awesome,’ an English expression that I enjoyed teaching my Italian host family in Trieste. Thanks much.
Kate
Lesley Brennan:
I just love your blogs and learn so much from them.
Your description of the gesture, which I was familiar with, was so perfect and funny – it is so hard to put a gesture into words. Brava!
William Auge:
Salve Serena, un paio di settemane fa ho guardato il spettacolo “Ispettore Coliandro”. La parola “cavolo” e’ stato usato nel dialogo. Anche, una parola per la polizia e’ stato usata quale tradurre a “pig”. Ma, e’ non sembrato essere porco. Posso dirmi che questa parola potrebbe essere.
Grazie, William
serena:
Salve William, la parola denigratoria più comune per un poliziotto è ‘sbirro’, che il mio dizionario traduce come ‘cop’ ma credo che voule dire qualcosa un po’ meno gentile!
Ovviamente si possono aggiungere altri aggettivi….
A presto, Serena