Dolcetto o Scherzetto? Halloween, Italian Style

La Maestra Maldestra

 

Halloween (L’halloween, my Italian friends called it, pronounced lahl-oh-ween) is not a very Italian festa (holiday) at all, but that has not stopped gli italiani (the Italians) from jumping on the Jack-o-Lantern bandwagon in the last few years and celebrating in style. The famous phrase, “trick or treat?” has even been translated to “dolcetto o scherzetto?“ in Italian to help the holiday along.

Last year, I spent Halloween in Italy. If you’re a regular reader/follower/subscriber to this blog, you’ll know that during my time living in Siena, I hung out a lot at one particular little osteria and got to be good friends with all the staff there. As Halloween approached, they approached me and asked for ideas for the Festa dell’Halloween (Halloween party) they wanted to throw at the osteria.

I suggested that they order proper orange pumpkins from their fruit and veg supplier (there was nary an orange pumpkin to be found in Siena’s supermercati, just very un-festive yellow ones) and I buzzed around town looking for some goulish decorations to spruce the place up a bit. I helped get the Halloween posters printed so that the fantasma (ghost) came out just right, and spent time trying to get the wording right in both English and Italian for the ads we put up. “Gradita la prezenza in maschera“, for those of you who speak Italian, is how we translated “costumes welcome.“

On Halloween afternoon, the boys closed the place early to set up for the big festa. After they assured me that they could certainly carve two pumpkins (something they’d never done before) without loosing any fingers or blood in the process, I left them alone to put the finishing touches on the party preparations and worried about how the pumpkins would look when I got back. When I swung back by later, I was greeted by these two lovely “Giacomo-Lanterns“ (the Italian version of Jack-o-Lanterns, apparently) which drew crowds to the festa all night:

I like to think they were the only two carved pumpkins in all of Siena last year! The festa was a huge success (went on till 4 a.m., they tell me) and all night people could be seen taking pictures with our unique pumpkins. Please note the Italian touches of vino rosso (red wine) and castagne (chestnuts) alongside our Giacomo Lanterns!

Happy Halloween to all!

Terrible Translations

Oh yes, you travellers out there know exactly what I’m talking about.

Have you ever sat down with the hopes of ordering a savoury meal, just to look at the menu and find it translated into nonsensical gibberish that’s supposed to be English? Or, worse yet! Have you ever seen something translated that makes perfect sense, just not in that context? It can lead to some  snickering,  pointing, picture taking, or even to some extremely loud, tears-streaming-down-your face, snot-pouring-out your nose guffawing. Did I paint a lovely picture for you? I certainly hope so.

Conjure up the image of an Alpine-style restaurant tucked away in a small town in the Dolomites, a summer evening, and a family of four. The father, a native Italian speaker, is graced with an Italian menu. Mom and kids are saddled with the English translated ones. The teenage daughter (yours truly), peruses the menu and suddenly starts to cackle like the Schlern Witch (a legendary little hag from the area).

“What the heck’s so funny, Sarah?” Dad asks.

“I’ll have the…” I lay my menu down on the table to start pointing, not doing a very good job of it because my finger is heaving up and down with my laughter.

“The…” Still cackling.

“The…!” Gasp. Laugh. Heave. Cackle. Gasp. Gasp. Snort. (Whoops!) Cackle. Laugh. Gasp.

“Spit it out, will ya sis?” Commands my brother.

“I’ll have the chunks of meat on a twig!” I say as fast as I can, trying to get it out between the heaving and laughing.

“The what!?” Dad looks at me like I’m crazy.

“Chunks of meat on a twig!”

Upon further inspection of the Italian language menu, we found out that the menu was offering spiedini, known in English as shish kabobs.  What did they use, the Rustic Hiker’s Guide to the English Language to translate that one?

And that’s not even the worst of it…

Picture a cozy restaurant in Belgium. It’s fall, there’s a fire in the fireplace, and it seems like just the right kind of night to try a something new. Mom and I flip through the fifteen pages of Belgian beer before we finally get to the non-liquid part of the menu.

“Oh Sarah. Oh gosh. What the heck do you think this is?” Mom tries to stifle her laughter as she points to one of the main dishes, a “specialty of the house”, or so they say.

“Windblown chicken?!”

Mom snickers in response.

“What the heck kind of place did you bring me to, Mom!? They wanna talk about cruelty to cows and stuff when they slaughter them…Let them come here! I’m getting a mental image of a poor, poor little chicken being flung around by a windmill!”

I do my best impression of a panicked chicken tied to the arm of a windmill, and it’s the end of Mom’s self control. Further inspection of the French language menu showed the dish to be “Vol-au-vent”, a little puffed pastry thingee that’s served with some type of thick chicken sauce over it. Sounds kinda good!

Not only can you encounter this type of linguistic creativity on menus (although I have found that they’re the most common displays of transfigured translations) but you’ll see it on signs in store windows, on official documents, on roadsigns and just about anywhere that tries to cater to tourists. Good-quality translations are few and far between, so get used to muddling through the made-up words, fancy spellings, misuses and syntactical creativity. Just think of it as another “cultural experience” while abroad!

See if you can spot the interesting translations in this French menu:

Terrible Translations

 

 

Word of the Day – Casino

La Maestra Maldestra

 

“Ma che casino!” cries a mother when she catches a glimpse of the toys littering her child’s room.

“C’è stato un casino di gente!” reports a man of last night’s crowd in the piazza.

“Non creare casini!”  a friend warns about how (not) to handle a certain situation.

If you’re sitting there scratching your head trying to figure out how a casino relates to these three situations, then you’ve come to the right place. In my experience, casino is one of Italy’s favourite words. Why? Because it fully embodies the raw spirit and character of daily Italian life.

The word casino (pronounced cah-zee-noh) doesn’t refer to a gambling establishment, but takes some of its meaning from the hubbub that you often find at one. Italians use the word casino to describe any sort of mess, crowd, disaster, large number of something, unruly group of something, noise, screw-up, or just general chaos. Now can you see why Italians use the word so much? I mean, I don’t even know what life in Italy would be like without a daily casino or two to keep you on your toes!

Now for a bit of further explanation that’ll probably just incasinare (foul up, make a mess of) your understanding of the word. Like I said, the word casino doesn’t refer to a Casino full of card tables and slot machines. Although the word probably at one time referred to a gambling Casino, Italians have created another word to take its place: casinò (pronounced cah-zee-noh). Note that the only difference is the accented o, which puts the emphasis on the last syllable and not the middle one….

So now that I’ve made a  un gran bel casino (a nice big mess) out of your understanding of the word, I think that’s enough for the day!