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LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

LOL: Look at this list of new Italian words

A young child has had his word endorsed by Italy's notoriously purist linguistic academy, while many others are on the waiting list. Take a look at Italian's newest words.

Published: 24 February 2016 10:43 CET
LOL: Look at this list of new Italian words
Photo: Margherita Aurora/Facebook

With its deep literary roots, the Italian language is often celebrated as one of the most beautiful, expressive languages in the world. But there's always room for an update.

Matteo, an Italian boy in his third year at a Ferrara primary school, came up with a new word which has received the seal of approval from Italy's 'language police', the Accademia Crusca, who are responsible for keeping the Italian language pure and compiling the official dictionaries.

The word? 'Petaloso', an adjective meaning 'petalled' . Matteo created the word by combining the noun 'il petalo' (petal) with the suffix 'oso', which is often added to nouns to create a corresponding adjective, for example 'famoso' and 'coraggioso'.

His inspiration struck during a class exercise practising descriptions, when he used it to describe a flower. His teacher, Margherita Aurora, liked the sound of the word so much that she suggested he submit it for evaluation by the Accademia Crusca – who came back with an encouraging reply.

“Dear Matteo,” their letter read. “The word that you’ve invented is a well formed word, and could be used in Italian. Your word is beautiful and clear.” 

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Qualche settimana fa, durante un lavoro sugli aggettivi, un mio alunno ha scritto di un fiore che era “petaloso”. La…

Posted by Margherita Aurora on Tuesday, 23 February 2016

The Accademia Crusca explained a similar occurrence, recommending that Aurora and Matteo read Drilla, a children's book by author Andrew Clements. “It tells a story like your own; the story of a child who invents a word and tries to get it added to the vocabulary.”

Aurora said the reply was “worth a thousand Italian lessons,” and thanked her “little inventor, Matteo.”

But 'petaloso' won't be entering the dictionary just yet. The Accademia Crusca explained that to get a word officially accepted, “it must be used and understood by a lot of people”. Since then, hundreds of people have shared the hashtag ‘#petaloso’ to help Matteo and spread the news of his neologism and it was one of the top Twitter trends in Italy on Wednesday morning.

“The day of Umberto Eco's funeral, a child invents a new word. A perfect tribute.”

“Well done to the educational wisdom of the person who didn't underline 'petaloso' in red but wrote to the Accademia Crusca”

The Accademia Crusca is a linguistic institution for scholars, initially founded in the 16th century to establish conformity across a language which at the time was fragmented. They still work to ensure the purity of the Italian language, a task which involves weeding out 'corrupt' words from Italian.

Several other words which have been suggested by Italians are on the ‘waiting list’ to be included in the vocabulary. Many of these are to do with the Internet and social media, while others are hybrids of English and Italian.

Here are some of the best new entries up for consideration:

1. Crashare – A verb to describe a computer crash, replacing the current, less dramatic use of 'bloccarsi' or 'arrestare' 

2. Photoshoppare – A snappier way of describing photo-editing compared to the cumbersome 'modificare con Photoshop'

3. Apericena – A combination of 'aperitivo' and 'cena' (dinner), often used by students who have aperitivo as a main meal to save money

4. Swag – No attempt has been made to Italianize this loan word, but if it enters the dictionary we might expect to see variants such as 'swaggare' or 'swaggoso'

5. Fangirlare – A verb to describe girls who act obsessively over celebrities

6. Twitteratura – By blending Twitter with 'letteratura' (literature), this noun could describe the more poetic posts on the social network

7. Carpediemoso – Like Matteo's word, this is an adjective created by adding the suffix 'oso'

8. Friendzonnare – 'To put in the friend zone', when someone you are romantically interested in only sees you as a friend

9. Lollare – Italy doesn't have an acronym equivalent to 'Lol', but this  verb

10. Skuoncare – A word for 'skincare', which at the moment is translated in Italian as 'cura della pelle'

11. Monello – A slang term for 'brat'

12. Oleologo – A word to describe a professional olive oil experts, used by self-declared oleologo Luigi Caricato

13. Pentastellato – An adjective to describe anything relating to political party 5 Star Movement

14. Spoilerare – To spoil the plot of a TV show, film or book. The noun form 'lo spoiler' is already popular in colloquial Italian

15. Gengle – A term for single parents which is a hybrid of 'genitori single', and also the name of a social network

16. Furbofono – Unlike most of the words on the list which have English origins, this is a more Italianized version of the noun ‘lo smartphone’

17. Shazzamare – To use the Shazam app to identify a song 

18. Skillato – An Anglicized alternative to 'qualificato' to describe a skilled worker

19. Nasciversario – 'Birthday', coming from the verb 'nascere' (to be born) to avoid confusion – the commonly used term 'anniversario' also means 'anniversary'

20. Bullizzare – 'to bully' from noun 'il bullismo'. Currently there is no corresponding verb, so Italians use paraphrases such as 'prevaricare' (to intimidate) or 'vittimizzare' (to victimize)
 

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LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Le Havre rules: How to talk about French towns beginning with Le, La or Les

If you're into car racing, French politics or visits to seaside resorts you are likely at some point to need to talk about French towns with a 'Le' in the title. But how you talk about these places involves a slightly unexpected French grammar rule. Here's how it works.

Published: 30 November 2021 13:04 CET
Updated: 4 December 2021 17:47 CET
An old WW2 photo taken in the French port town of Le Havre.
An old WW2 photo taken in the French port town of Le Havre. It can be difficult to know what prepositions to use for places like this - so we have explained it for you. (Photo by AFP)

If you’re listening to French chat about any of those topics, at some point you’re likely to hear the names of Mans, Havre and Touquet bandied about.

And this is because French towns that have a ‘Le’ ‘La’ or ‘Les’ in the title lose them when you begin constructing sentences. 

As a general rule, French town, commune and city names do not carry a gender. 

So if you wanted to describe Paris as beautiful, you could write: Paris est belle or Paris est beau. It doesn’t matter what adjectival agreement you use. 

For most towns and cities, you would use à to evoke movement to the place or explain that you are already there, and de to explain that you come from/are coming from that location:

Je vais à Marseille – I am going to Marseille

Je suis à Marseille – I am in Marseille 

Je viens de Marseille – I come from Marseille 

But a select few settlements in France do carry a ‘Le’, a ‘La’ or a ‘Les’ as part of their name. 

In this case the preposition disappears when you begin formulating most sentences, and you structure the sentence as you would any other phrase with a ‘le’, ‘la’ or ‘les’ in it.

Masculine

Le is the most common preposition for two names (probably something to do with the patriarchy) with Le Havre, La Mans, Le Touquet and the town of Le Tampon on the French overseas territory of La Réunion (more on that later)

A good example of this is Le Havre, a city in northern France where former Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe, who is tipped to one day run for the French presidency, serves as mayor. 

Edouard Philippe’s twitter profile describes him as the ‘Maire du Havre’, using a masculine preposition

Here we can see that his location is Le Havre, and his Twitter handle is Philippe_LH (for Le Havre) but when he comes to describe his job the Le disappears.

Because Le Havre is masculine, he describes himself as the Maire du Havre rather than the Maire de Havre (Anne Hidalgo, for example would describe herself as the Maire de Paris). 

For place names with ‘Le’ in front of them, you should use prepositions like this:

Ja vais au Touquet – I am going to Le Touquet

Je suis au Touquet – I am in Le Touquet 

Je viens du Touquet – I am from Le Touquet 

Je parle du Touquet – I am talking about Le Touquet

Le Traité du Touquet – the Le Touquet Treaty

Feminine

Some towns carry ‘La’ as part of their name. La Rochelle, the scenic town on the west coast of France known for its great seafood and rugby team, is one such example.

In French ‘à la‘ or ‘de la‘ is allowed, while ‘à le‘ becomes au and ‘de le’ becomes du. So for ‘feminine’ towns such as this, you should use the following prepositions:

Je vais à La Rochelle – I am going to La Rochelle

Je viens de La Rochelle – I am coming from La Rochelle 

Plural

And some places have ‘Les’ in front of their name, like Les Lilas, a commune in the suburbs of Paris. The name of this commune literally translates as ‘The Lilacs’ and was made famous by Serge Gainsbourg’s song Le Poinçonneur des Lilas, about a ticket puncher at the Metro station there. 

When talking about a place with ‘Les’ as part of the name, you must use a plural preposition like so:

Je suis le poinçonneur des Lilas – I am the ticket puncher of Lilas 

Je vais aux Lilas – I am going to Les Lilas

Il est né aux Lilas – He was born in Les Lilas  

Islands 

Islands follow more complicated rules. 

If you are talking about going to one island in particular, you would use à or en. This has nothing to do with gender and is entirely randomised. For example:

Je vais à La Réunion – I am going to La Réunion 

Je vais en Corse – I am going to Corsica 

Generally speaking, when talking about one of the en islands, you would use the following structure to suggest movement from the place: 

Je viens de Corse – I am coming from Corsica 

For the à Islands, you would say:

Je viens de La Réunion – I am coming from La Réunion 

When talking about territories composed of multiple islands, you should use aux.

Je vais aux Maldives – I am going to the Maldives. 

No preposition needed 

There are some phrases in French which don’t require any a preposition at all. This doesn’t change when dealing with ‘Le’ places, such as Le Mans – which is famous for its car-racing track and Motorcycle Grand Prix. Phrases that don’t need a preposition include: 

Je visite Le Mans – I am visiting Le Mans

J’aime Le Mans – I like Le Mans

But for a preposition phrase, the town becomes simply Mans, as in Je vais au Mans.

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