No, it’s not another song translation, simply a little blog inspired by our old FIAT Punto. Anyone who has ever owned a Punto, Panda, Uno etc. will know that, whilst generally reliable, they tend to develop their own individual voice which is composed of a range of unidentifiable squeaks, creaks, rattles, and so on. We long ago gave up on stuffing pieces of card into potential rattle gaps, banging on suspicious panels, and twiddling switches and screws in the vain hope of a quiet journey. We’ve learned to live with the little symphony of chattering that she (the Punto) chants to us as we drive along.

The only guaranteed way to stop your old FIAT from rattling!

But one thing continues to frustrate me like mad: the lack of an Italian noun for rattle, as in the noise made by your typical old FIAT Punto. Now, if I’m in a car with English speakers and I hear a rattling noise I simply say “can you hear that rattling noise?”. Not so with a car containing Italian passengers. I’m reduced to saying “senti quel rumore che fa trak trak trak/clak clak clak etc?” and embarrassing myself by producing a plethora of silly noises in the hope of drawing attention to that very annoying rattle. In fact in English I could even say ‘metallic rattling noise’, ‘plastic rattling noise’, and so on. It’s no good, from now on I’m only allowing English speakers in my Punto!

Seriously though, the word rattle does have a surprising number of interpretations in Italian, even if none of them are the one that I actually need. Let’s have a look.

Rattle:

1. sferragliare (verb: to make a rattling noise) la vecchia macchina sferragliava lungo la strada (the old car rattled along the road). The root of this verb is obviously ferro (iron), which leads to ferraglia (scrap metal). However, sferragliare only describes the noise of scrap metal being moved about, so you can’t ask “senti quella sferraglia?” because it doesn’t make sense.

2. far sbatacchiare (to shake and make a rattling noise) il vento faceva sbatacchiare le persiane (the wind rattled the shutters)

3. il sonaglio (noun: the baby’s rattle) from suonare (to play or make a sound)

4. innervosire (verb: to emotionally shake), quell’incidente mi ha veramente  innervosito (that accident really rattled me)

5. il crotalo (noun: the rattlesnake) commonly known as ‘il serpente a sonagli’ (see sonaglio above)

Un bellissimo crotalo adamantino occidentale

6. il rantolo (noun: the death rattle)

7. continuare a chiacchierare (to rattle on, lit: to continue chattering), il prof era così noioso, continuava a chiacchierare per ore (the teacher was really boring, he rattled on for hours), we also have chiacchierare incessantemente di (to rattle on about), Laura chiacchiera incessantemente di Paolo (Laura rattles on about Paulo)

8. parlare a raffica (to rattle on, lit. to speak in bursts or never shut up), a variant of continuare a chiacchierare

9. ripetere velocemente (to rattle off) il sergente ripeteva velocemente gli ordini del giorno (the sergeant rattled off the orders of the day)

10. scuotere rumorosamente (to rattle, lit. to shake noisily)

Adesso vi prometto di smettere di chiacchierare incessantemente della parola ‘rattle’