One day in your life

Longing or Desire

2007-08-04T08:41:00.000+02:00

In Italian, if you want someone or something badly, you can say: "desiderare" or "bramare".

"Bramare" is an interesting verb, though. A sort of magic and obscure desire for someone or something.

In English, apart from "to desire", you can always say "to long for".

And "to long for" gives you the exact idea of the sweet and neverlasting pain of desiring someone or something.

Manage or Run?

2007-05-19T11:16:00.000+02:00

In Italian, you would say: "Io dirigo una società".

It means that you manage a company: you are sitting in your office and give orders to the workers by phone.

But in English you would say "I run a company". This means that you are sweating to make it work, you are running together with your partners and workers to make things right.

A slightly different point of view, but with a whole world of meanings underneath.

Marbles in Marmo

2007-01-14T22:12:00.000+01:00

I was just thinking about the slight difference in the meaning of marble and the corrispondent translation in Italian marmo.

Marmo makes you think of the hardness and coldness of the surface (maybe because we use to say "hard like the marmo" (duro come il marmo) and "cold as the marmo" (freddo come il marmo). Marmo is also the most common material used for tombstones. These are very common expressions in day-to-day language.

Marble makes you think instead of the shining surface of the marble, maybe because in English "marbles" are also the shining little glass balls which young boys use to play with ("biglie").

Fascinating, isn't it?

Human Nature

2006-10-09T21:22:00.000+02:00

They says that it's common for women to try to change their men's nature.
But what do men try instead to do with their women's nature? To make them domestic and indulgent?

John Donne

2006-09-28T22:37:00.000+02:00

No man is an island, entire of itself;
every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;

I'll pencil it!

2006-08-26T22:18:00.000+02:00

I have always thought that one of the best thing about speaking English rather than Italian, is that English has shorter words, sentences, periods.

I.e. I'll pencil it on my diary (7 words, in total 21 letters)

In Italian?
--- Lo scriverò con il lapis sulla mia agenda (8 words, in total 35 letters!!!).

And I'm not sure that the Italian sentence conveys the wide range of meaning of the English one.

Last but not least, I do love the stress given to "I", the self-person that English always show.

I'll pencil it (the stress is strongly based on the subject, the object comes later).

Lo scriverò (the object of the sentence comes first and the subject is not stressed).

My Grand-grand-mother Gina

2006-04-24T20:12:00.000+02:00

My Grand-grand-mother Gina had been a baby sitter, a "balia" as they would say, for the Prince Chigi's son and daughter.
She left her three young children with her husband and her older daughter, Clelia (my grand-mother), and lived in Rome for the greatest part of the year.
Tuscan young women were said to be great and strong women, good for raising children.

Prince Chigi's son and daughter one day came and visited my grand-grand-mother Gina, when I was a baby. She was very old.
I remember only two shadows and long legs walking and the excitement in the neighborohood that two famous princes would came in our house.

People from My Past: My Grand-grand-mother Gina

2006-02-19T14:56:00.000+01:00

My grand-grand mother Gina was born in 1889.

She was already 80 years-old, when I was born.

I remember she had a beautiful round face, a nice smile and a strong personality, hidden under a mild and childish attitude in life.

She had a big kitchen, with a huge fireplace and everything she cooked, always smelled of ash.

My Spider Senses Are Detecting

2006-02-13T15:13:00.000+01:00

a

s
h
a
d
o
w

Cruel are the Times

2006-02-06T08:31:00.000+01:00

.... I dare not speak much further,
But cruel are the times, when we are traitors
And do not know ourselves; when we hold rumour
From what we fear, yet know not what we fear,
But float upon a wild and violent sea,
Each way and none...

"Macbeth", William Shakespeare
4.2

Macbeth

2006-01-11T14:13:00.000+01:00

Macbeth's tragedy is that of a good, brave and honourable man turned into the personification of evil by the workings of unreasonable ambition.

Macbeth is overwhelmed by a triple alliance: the witches' prophecies, his own ambitions and those of Lady Macbeth.

Lady Macbeth:

"... yet do I fear thy nature,

it is too full o'th' milk of human kindness

to catch the nearest way: thou wouldst be great,

art not without ambition, but without

the illness should attend it..."

atto I, scena V

Lady Macbeth and Iago are personifications of the evil. While Iago is pure evil, since he acts without a reason, lady Macbeth acts under the strength of her love for his husband.

Is there a difference, in the end, in the evil they cause?

What's the matter with you?

2005-12-10T21:59:00.000+01:00

One of the most difficult sentences that has to be translated in Italian.

What's the matter with you?

The movies are full of this sentence, as it is one of the most common (I suppose) way to relate each other.

So, when translated into Italian, what's the matter with you, becomes:

Qual è il tuo problema? (horrible, one never says this in Italian)

Cosa c'è che non va in te? (not the exact meaning)..

Etc..

It's funny to realize that the corrispondent sentence in Italian "Che c'è?.. Cosa c'è? .. Cos'hai" is quite never translated, maybe because it is considered too general.

Me and my car

2005-11-13T21:16:00.000+01:00

This is my car. And this is me.

Exams

2005-10-21T11:01:00.000+02:00

Pretty often, at University, it happened that the Professor asked the nastiest questions, shaked his head as if he was disapproving your answers, treated you like the ugliest animal on earth.

One of them, a salt and pepper haired woman from Leghorn, who used to break marriages among the Professors in her faculty, said one day: "We are doing this, to help you in life. In your life you'll find people with, only with the strength of words, try to beat you down. You must be strong enough and use the same weapon to react."

So is it stronger a word or a behaviour? To say or to make?

The love and duty that I bear you

2005-10-14T14:32:00.000+02:00

IAGO

I am glad of it; for now I shall have reason
To show the love and duty that I bear you
With franker spirit: therefore, as I am bound,
Receive it from me. I speak not yet of proof.
Look to your wife; observe her well with Cassio;
Wear your eye thus, not jealous nor secure:
I would not have your free and noble nature,
Out of self-bounty, be abused; look to't

The evil behind the good, the good slave to the evil.

The Evil (This Neverending Story)

2005-10-05T10:39:00.000+02:00

To speak about the evil, and I mean Evil, with a capital letter, first of all you must have known it.

Not read, not imagined.

Known, breathed, lived day after day.

The evil often hides behind the good. Obviously. Otherwise it would be easily recognized and unmasked. Hidden behind the good, it can act untroubled.

I mean: Iago tries to persuade Otello that Desdemona is unfaithfull repeating lots of times the concept that he is telling him this for its safe, than he would not never dare to hurt his feelings.

The members of the ftpb smiled to me, touched me with affection, cooked exclusive dishes only for me: actually they wished me bad luck, touched me to (according to them) send me the most horrible curses, prepared exclusive meals for me to put whoever knows which magical powder in my dish.

The evil is fought with the evil. Don't be naive. The good is weak against the evil. The good fights with watered weapons. The evil uses instead EVERY weapon, especially the good, above all the good (of course, the good functional to the evil).

Innocent people cannot do anything against the evil. If you have been taught this, is subject only for a feuilleton.

Long Distance Love

2005-09-27T14:51:00.000+02:00

Pros:
- no day-to-day routine
- one always shows his/her best side
- the distance keeps the desire to see each other alive
- it’s a mind thing that doesn’t (or shouldn’t) affect the real life, after all

Cons:
- lacks of physical contact
- misunderstandings and quarrels cannot be solved with an eye contact
- betrayal from one side or another can be easily carried on

…

That silk light, that shining dress

2005-09-21T21:53:00.000+02:00

When you know someone for the first time and you like him/her very much, it's like he/she's covered with a silk light and a shining dress.

As time goes by, that silk light and that shining dress fade and he/she looks like someone you already know: not bad, not good, often, but nothing special.

But when he/she keeps on being covered with a silk light and a shining dress, does it mean you're in love?

Double Future

2005-09-13T20:41:00.000+02:00

English Language is always logic. Much more logic than Italian.
But if there's one English grammar rule that I don' understand, it's the "doppio futuro" rule.

If it rains, I'll take the umbrella
(present tense - future tense)

Se pioverà, prenderò l'ombrello
(future tense - future tense).

What's the logic that is under the double future rule?
Because it's logic that I'm referring to a certain moment in the future, that I'll take the umbrella, when it will rain, not when it rains.

?

But.. if

2005-09-06T19:36:00.000+02:00

But if the ingredients are still on the shelf, how can I eat the cake?

And if the rasperries are still in the wood, how can I put my fingers in the jam?

But if the corn is still in the field, how can I make my bread?

So: if I haven't took off yet, how can I land with my heavy load?

And are we sure, but really sure, that I'm doing the right thing?

What would I do..?

2005-09-05T17:13:00.000+02:00

What would I do if I suddenly became a billionaire?

I'd buy a big house in the pinewood of some sea town, with a lot of bedrooms for all my friends, a big kitchen with food and beverage always on the table, a swimming pool and a gym and a big park with tall pine trees and a private path to a very hidden beach.

Queues in Italy and the Roman Law

2005-09-02T21:35:00.000+02:00

How do you cope with a queue in Italy?

It's really simple. You just go to the first row, making your way with your elbows through other elbows, hoping that the cashier, receptionist, etc.. gives you immediate attention.

You don't understand the absurdity of the whole system, until you go to England, i.e., and see the most diligent queues, with every person one after another, one behind another, no one complaining, no one giving his elbow in your face.

I can't think from whom the Italians have inherited this amazing behaviour, but since the Roman Law didn't consider lies and tricks as crimes, I suspect it's from Romans.

You can always convince the other people in the queue, with a perfect Cicerone imitation, that you are in a hurry because your cat feels so alone at home.

Writing a story

2005-09-01T11:29:00.000+02:00

Writing a story I don't really write about a true story but about an alternative story, or better an invented story that coming from a real episode. For example two eyes crossing me or listening to a phrase between two person seated in a restaraunt table near us.
Sometime happens that the alternative story became true, not exactly true but true enough. This is not magician but probably the desire that something happens and when we wish to something, sometime, somewhere it may happen.
Maybe is like the tree falling far away. We don't look at it and so for what we know we don't hear if it's really fall but for the tree the perspective is very different. It is really fall. So there are three subject in a story. The writer, the story subject and the reader. The first one knows if the tree is really fall or no. The tree knows if it fall or not. The reader will never know the true but more the writer will be good more the reader will believe at the story also if he knows the story is just some words written one after the other.
So if I tell you that I've known a beautiful young girl and she's fall in love by me and we are going to live in a great house near the moon you read and will be very sad for the poor trees used to make the paper for what I've written because looking at a photograph of mine or my age or the fact I am pimply and dirty this will sound far-fetched but if I begin the story telling you that I live in a great town and every one meeting me hit me on the head because my face remember him a man that was very bad for him and my girl friend dump me because she have found a baskeball team a she has decided to have a meeting whit everyone of them and my chief has gave me a letter to comunicate me that there are nomore money and I have to leave my seat immediatly, you will believe it cause the story seems faithful and appropriate to the idea you have of a common man, like I am.
Probably also because the second one is more interesting then the first story unless that I write in the first one a lot of shot of sex.
You have surely notice that I've lost the original idea but that's the true reason why I write. I write to explicate my personal ideas so I've started from plausibility and I've arrived to understand that we couldn't care less about plausibility if there are enough sex.

To know by heart or was it conoscere a memoria?

2005-09-01T08:47:00.000+02:00

For the ancient Greeks, the soul lived in the heart, so did all the intellectual faculties of men.

So, the English language has mantained this perspective: to know by heart means to love something so much that it is inside your heart and consequently you know very well.
You know very well because you love it with all your heart, you have breathed it so that now it is in your inner part and the most important of your body.
It is part of you.

In Italian, the love & affection meaning isn't contemplated. "Conoscere a memoria": you know with your brain, the brain just like a scanner which has screened the object and now it is, subdivided in bites 0-1, under flashes of light in your mind. But no affection and love for it.
Consequently, the object is something detached from you, that didn't affect you in any way.
That you can possibly forget after a while.

Cool.

Vote for me

2005-08-30T14:14:00.000+02:00

People I Know think that I've an easy way to approach life and his trouble. They say I am very superficial that is I approach everything like it happens to someone else. So since there are a lot of people saying this thing I suppose this should be true. The real problem is that some of them think it is a fault as I think this is a real value, a great value.
There is people learning a lot of songs from memory. I envy them, I think they are great. I listen to a lot of songs instead, I don't know their lyrics, I don't want to learn it so well to be able to sing that song exectly how the original singer sing it. I don't want. I am superficial, I am lazy i prefer to sing it how I feel it using a paper with the words. Why using memory when i can use a paper?
Meanwhile you learn from memory the lyrics of a song I've listened to one hundred songs. Do I prefer quantity instead of quality? Maybe is it a fault? Ok, you can say that is a telltale sign of my way to approach life, whit no intensity, having no care to the real important thing. Probably you're right but rather I think that this is a way to knowing much more thing so to have a bird's-eye view. I think that the specialization make stupid, that is very intelligent in our scope but completely idiot in what regard other aspects. That's don't means that knoweldge is vain but that's the reason why exists the politician.
So this the real problem of our life there are too people that know a thing in detail but then they don't know how to place it in the real life. The real problem is that these persons manage State, Religion, Multinational company and so on. This is a real danger they are able to destroy the world because they see a little detail and they forget to look at all. So if you'd have to vote to a person to become premier ask him if he kwow songs by heart. If he answer "yes" don't vote to him!
Vote for me I know no songs by heart!

Commas

2005-08-29T10:59:00.000+02:00

I'm very puzzled about the use of commas in direct speech in English:
"Curiosity killed the cat," said the mouse, "and it's raining cats".

While in Italian, you would write:
"Curiosity killed the cat", said the mouse, "and it's raining cats".

But why English people is so obsessed with cats, puzzles me more.

May I look at you?

2005-08-25T09:13:00.000+02:00

During a normal conversation I make a lot of grammatic mistake expecially when I speak with a girl pointing his eyes into mine, much more hard if she's dressing a tiny shirt showing much more then it covers. So I prefer to write to her. When I write a letter I can read it and then read it again and then read it again till I don't remember anymore why I'm writing a letter and especially to whom. So all the paper I've used to write become my personal archive for my future writing.
But coming back to the real scope of this post when I talk to a girl I have two problems. The first one is that I make a lot of mistakes the second one is that I'm not able to look at her without give a look to her breasts. This is not a good thing, I means. It Is just like a girl talking with me continue to look at my pot-belly. After two or three peep I begin to cover it using pillows, sweaters and everithing i can put on my tummy. But women don't do that they are more ruthless.
At the first glance they assume indifference, at the second look indifference become embarassement but a little voice in their mind say "you love me, pig", at the third look they close the neckline with a rapid move comunicating to you that the show is end and if you want to look again you must pay the ticket that generally in your mind means: dinner, assorted jewels, parents, marriage, and then, perhaps, a litte possibility to give another look to their incredible breasts, in theirs mind maybe not but you know it never.

You really look like an English!

2005-08-25T08:56:00.000+02:00

Since I was a child, I have always been meeting people telling me: "You look like an English!".
It was partly because of my white complexion I think or my blonde long hair and partly because of my attitude in life.

When I was in Northern Ireland, collecting books and info for my thesis, a professor of the Faculty of Science, breaking into the room where I was talking to the secretary, said "I know there are two Italian girls here!". He shook my hand vigourously and he added: "Your friend looks like a Spanish, but you do look like an Irish!"

Last but not least, two friends of mine who, I suppose, have never been to UK, told me that "with your detached attitude in life" and "with your pale yellow dress and your bag, here, in the wood", ... well I looked like an English.

But what does to look like an English exactly mean?

I miss you so

2005-08-23T18:13:00.000+02:00

The fact is that English is a wonderful language: short sentences, short words, many less words in the English dictionary if compared to the Italian one.
So every English word carries in itself a wider range of meaning. Your fantasy and your senses open to a scented and coloured flower of meanings.

If I say:

Mi manchi tanto

the words are plain, the sentence is plain and the recurrence of mmnn makes me think of a mum who is missing her child very much. It's a childish thing.

But if I say:

I miss you so

the subjects are explicitated. I and You: there are two persons and they are separated by the word miss, so that you immediately think about a male and a female who are dying to be together again. I -miss- you. No mmnn to make the sentence plain as if in a sort of complain. Now there's rhythm, there's energy, there's desire.
And then there is the sighing of the desire: so. I miss you so.
So remains suspended, it's pronunciated with two forced vowels, it's not plain.
And it stays there, without a conclusion, without a word which could complete and put to an end the tension of the suspended sentence.

I miss you so.

That's why English is a wonderful language.

Sorry for my poor english

2005-08-23T09:57:00.000+02:00

The problem is that I don't know english very well so I could have thousands of things to tell you but I know few words to explain everything is in my mind.
In italian I know a lot of of words, so if i want to say to a young girl how is beautiful I can speak for hours and I'm sure to tell her exactly what I want to say (*) but if I have to speak not using Italian but using English everything become very hard to do unless the person in front of me is imaginary.
If she is imaginary I can use words that seems english to talk with her and if a word or a phrase don't arrive in my mind I can use the Englitalian, for example instead of "What time is it?" I can say "What or is it?" where or is a Englitalian way to say "ora", "time".
So there are fantastic dialogs in my mind between me and Catherine Zeta-Jones, for example, and I tell her "You are beautiful your skin is so morbid and your lip kiss me like a lacrim in the rain" and she tell me: "Oh Marco you are so strong and your mind pien of ideas and you string my hands so tenerament and I strugg for you". The Englitalian consists to say the unkown word in italian without the last letter, for example if you have to say "Church", in italian "Chiesa" you can say "Chies".
Obviously the dialog is between you and an imaginary person because if you talk with a real person you can see a lot of funny expressions of his face and if she is a girl and you want (how do you say when you want to have a meeting with a young girl but you don't want to receive form her a hit on the face... a thank you) to flirt with her this is at least embarrassing.
So if you look at a man seated alone in a bar drinking a pint of beer speaking alone probably he is me speaking in Englitalian with Catherine Zeta-Jones or Angiolina Jolie and if a young girl approach him and he become to pretend to be dumb this one really I am.

(*) To tell the truth this happen when I speak in Italian too but this is another story to tell.

Every Night

2005-08-23T08:45:00.000+02:00

Lesson Nr° 1

+Sorry this is the station?
-No it isin't, this is the post office. The station is across the street.
+Thank you
-Are you english?
+No I'm an american
-Good Morning
+Good Morning

Doubts

2005-08-23T03:42:00.000+02:00

Roy Lichtenstein

The morning began with a thin and thick rain and the doctor shaving in the bathroom and singing "Heidi" with scrambled and humorous lyrics.
But I had a doubt that prevented me from sleeping that night: are we really sure that alsoittina is coming in the right place?