{"id":2275,"date":"2012-09-07T12:18:13","date_gmt":"2012-09-07T12:18:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/?p=2275"},"modified":"2012-09-07T13:19:14","modified_gmt":"2012-09-07T13:19:14","slug":"il-mestiere-pi-antico-del-mondo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/il-mestiere-pi-antico-del-mondo\/","title":{"rendered":"Il Mestiere Più Antico Del Mondo"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is an old Italian movie directed by Federico Fellini in 1957, that me and Geoff love: Le Notti di Cabiria<\/strong><\/font><\/a> (Nights of Cabiria. Click on link for more information). Giulietta Masina, Fellini\u2019s wife, wonderfully portraits a very naive prostitute, or rather una battona<\/strong>, as they say in Rome. Cabiria is the professional name of the main character, a prostitute who lives and works in the suburb of  Rome, on the notorious Via Appia, set in a very deprived area. I\u2019m not going to tell you any more about the film, because you must watch it if you haven\u2019t seen it yet. However, what I will tell you  are the many words that we use in Italian to describe a prostitute! Probably because this is il mestiere pi\u00f9 antico del mondo<\/strong> (the oldest trade in the world), we do have a lot of words, and they have different connotations: some are more derogatory, whilst some are more euphemistic, almost poetic! Let\u2019s have a look at the most common names, starting from the fairly neutral and going down to the most offensive:<\/p>\n

Prostituta<\/strong> (prostitute) is probably the most technical term. It comes from the Latin verb \u2018prostituire\u2019 which means \u2018to put for sale\u2019<\/p>\n

Passeggiatrice<\/strong> (stroller) is a euphemism to describe the prostitute walking up and down on the pavement<\/p>\n

Peripatetica<\/strong> (peripatetic) comes from Greek and means exactly the same as passeggiatrice<\/strong>, to walk around, but it\u2019s the most intellectual of all the titles for a prostitute. I must admit that, having always heard this word used with the meaning of prostitute, I was somewhat shocked when I went to England looking for a job, and my English uncle suggested that I become \u2018a peripatetic teacher\u2019!<\/p>\n

Lucciola<\/strong> (fire fly), the most poetic name! She uses a bright light to attract the males, just like the lucciola<\/p>\n

Squillo<\/strong> (call girl), squillo literally means the ring of a telephone<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s move on now to stronger titles:<\/p>\n

Puttana <\/strong>is the most common derogatory term for a prostitute. It comes from the French \u2018putain\u2019 which in turn comes from the Latin \u2018putidus\u2019 meaning \u2018stinking\u2019. It is used as an insult but, I must say, it\u2019s not the worst<\/p>\n

Battona<\/strong> is originally a Roman word. It comes from battere il marciapiede<\/strong> (to walk\/beat the pavement)<\/p>\n

Baldracca<\/strong>, interestingly, comes from the name of an ancient Florentine Inn used by prostitutes. In my opinion this is a more derogatory word than the previous two<\/p>\n

Sgualdrina<\/strong>, funnily enough, is a deformation of the \u2018baldracca\u2019. I would say that this is the strongest term that a posh, well educated person would use. In fact, it\u2019s the classic word used in films and books from the Fifties and Sixties<\/p>\n

Finally, those that I would consider the most derogatory epithets:<\/p>\n

Zoccola<\/strong> is probably a corruption of the Latin word \u2018sorcula\u2019, a diminutive of \u2018sorcis\u2019 (rat), combined with the Italian word \u2018zoccolo\u2019, a rough person who wears \u2018zoccoli\u2019 (clogs)!<\/p>\n

Troia<\/strong> is the Medieval word for \u2018sow\u2019 (a female pig). The problem with this word is that it\u2019s spelled and pronounced exactly like the Italian name for the historical city of Troy. Therefore, when the famous movie starring Brad Pitt was released in Italy a few years ago, the producers decided to keep the original English title, Troy, just to be on the safe side! A film released under the title Troia<\/strong> in Italy would probably draw quite a different type of audience!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is an old Italian movie directed by Federico Fellini in 1957, that me and Geoff love: Le Notti di Cabiria (Nights of Cabiria. Click on link for more information). Giulietta Masina, Fellini\u2019s wife, wonderfully portraits a very naive prostitute, or rather una battona, as they say in Rome. Cabiria is the professional name of…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3,619],"tags":[229113,229114,229115,128779,229112],"class_list":["post-2275","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-culture","category-italian-language","tag-federico-fellini","tag-giulietta-masina","tag-italian-movie","tag-italian-swear-words","tag-le-notti-di-cabiria"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2275"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2275\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2278,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2275\/revisions\/2278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}