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ITALIAN WORD OF THE DAY

Italian expression of the day: ‘A occhio e croce’

It’ll take you roughly five minutes to master this Italian phrase.

Italian word of the day: A occhio e croce
Photo: Annie Spratt/Unsplash/Nicolas Raymond

Italians aren’t exactly sticklers for precision. 

In fact, it could be argued that most have a natural (and exceedingly irritating) inclination to be as vague as they possibly can when expressing times, sizes and other types of measurement. 

That’s a big part of the reason why the expression a occhio e croce is so popular in ordinary, day-to-day Italian.

A occhio e croce, which is literally translatable as ‘by eye and cross’, is essentially used to refer to any calculation or judgement the speaker is unsure of. Its most immediate English equivalents are: approximately, roughly, more or less and give or take. 

Quante persone c’erano alla festa ieri?

Mah, 30 persone, a occhio e croce.

How many people were at the party yesterday?

Hmm, 30 people, give or take.

Quanto è distante casa tua da qui?

Credo due chilometri, a occhio e croce.

How far’s your place from here?

Roughly two kilometres, I think.

As shown by the above examples, a occhio e croce generally follows the object the speaker is unsure of, though it can sometimes be used at the start of a sentence:

Quanta corda ti serve per la barca?

A occhio e croce, direi tre metri.

How much rope do you need for your boat?

At a rough guess, I’d say three metres.

In these cases, the expression is best translated as ‘at a guess’.

It’s also worth pointing out that some ‘lazy’ native speakers might sometimes remove the preposition a and only say occhio e croce. In such situations, the meaning remains the same.

Now that you more or less know how to use the expression, you might be wondering where it comes from. 

The phrase is largely thought to have originated within Florence’s Silk Guild in the Late Middle Ages.  

There, whenever one or more threads would come unthreaded, workers would have to rethread them a occhio, meaning by sight, and a croce, that is by following a rough cross pattern. Hence the expression a occhio e croce.

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ITALIAN WORD OF THE DAY

Italian expression of the day: ‘Cambiare registro’

Here's the Italian phrase you'll need if you're looking for a change.

Italian expression of the day: ‘Cambiare registro’

If you live in Italy or have spent a considerable amount of time in the country, you may have overheard an Italian parent telling their child they needed to cambiare registro right after they threw a tantrum. 

If you work or have worked in Italy, you may also have had one of your superiors tell you that a cambio di registro was needed in the office. 

But what do Italians really mean when they tell someone they need to ‘change register’?

Italians use cambiare registro to tell someone that they need to change their behaviour, manners or way to approach a particular task (including work or school assignments), usually because they’re not particularly happy with the way they’re currently handling things. 

It is generally used with the verb dovere (must/have to), which must be conjugated according to the person who could do with a ‘change of register’. For instance:

Non hai passato gli ultimi tre test. Devi cambiare registro se vuoi tenere la tua paghetta settimanale.  

You failed the past three exams. You need to turn things around if you want to keep your weekly allowance.

La tua performance al lavoro e’ stata insoddisfacente questo trimestre. Devi veramente cambiare registro il prossimo mese.

Your performance at work has been unsatisfactory this quarter. You really need to turn things around next month.

You could also say that a situation you’re unhappy with needs ‘a change of register’, without addressing anyone in particular. 

Ci sono cose ovunque. C’e’ bisogno di un cambio di registro in questa casa.

There’s stuff all over the place. Changes are needed in this house.

As you can see from these examples, there’s no single way to translate the phrase into English, though ‘turning things around’ and ‘changing up’ are popular translations.

And if you’re wondering where the expression comes from, it has nothing to do with Italy’s Registry Office (or Anagrafe), nor with any other part of the country’s public administration. 

Cambiare registro was originally a music-related expression as it referred to the act of changing the tone or range (registro in Italian) of some musical instruments, including pipe organs.

But, as in the case of many other Italian phrases and expressions, its usage was later extended to daily life situations to express a need for major changes.

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