If Peter G reads this and if he was also a part of Betfor he too could join us in keeping the flame alight and the Alabarda pointing to the stars. Cheers, Larry Larry I'm only a young sprog and didn't join the army until 1948, long after you old sweats had been demobbed. :) Nice to see you back, yo...

Larry My point was that mignotta is not derived from filius.m.ignotae , it derives from an Old French word. In any event, what is filius.m.ignotae supposed to mean? It is very bad Latin. Filius means boy and does not require a qualifying 'm'. It can hardly stand for mater as the mother of a child is...

And it's a two-way traffic, of course. English speakers, both American and British, insist on calling a very attractive empty-headed young woman a bimbo. Not realising that a bimbo is a baby boy.

For instance the Roman slang word "mignotta" comes from the latin sentence "filius m. ignotae" written in the parrish baptism registers, as everybody will tell you in Rome Afraid not, 'mignotta' isn't directly from Latin, corrupted or otherwise. Meaning squaldrina , bagascia , p...

Two good examples of collective nouns are "team" and "government," which are both words referring to groups of (usually) people. This is not quite the same as treatment . We can speak of several teams and any number of governments . In contrast we would have to say that there ar...

'Treatment', for a medical condition, includes all medicines, diets, operations, etc. In this sense an example would be 'The treatment for his condition was successful'. 'Treatment', in the sense of repairs (building, car, house, etc) includes all remedial action. Macondo is quite correct. It is alw...

AdlerTS ha scritto:there's a certain difference between a "ragazza semplice" and a "ragazza facile"

English is not quite as succinct; it requires a euphemism for the second.

A simple girl and a girl of easy virtue are at the opposite ends of the spectrum.

Peter

I think that in English you must use a different adjective, to show the difference. I think the adjective must always be before the name. Heaven forbid! (which I assure you is quite different from 'Forbid Heaven'). :) But you are right about the adjective preceeding a noun. To take the two examples...

I think there is another use of "I were" instead of "I was". I remember a sentence: "I wish I were a millionaire". Quite so. The subjunctive is a verbal mood expressing hypothesis, generally denoting what is imagined. wished, demanded, proposed, exhorted, etc. It follo...

AdlerTS ha scritto:I don't understand if "if i was" is always incorrect or can be right in some sentences.

You do hear if I was but it is ungrammatical. The correct form is if I were

If I were you I'd leave it at that

Peter

Babestrina You assume correctly. If I were is the subjunctive and translates the Italian se fossi . But English speakers, be they British, Americans, Canadians or Australians, do not bother about grammar the way that Italians do. If you go to that helpful link that Ron gave you can see from the plet...

Italian is becoming a foreign language. On the invitation for an exhibition in a museum, there is the signature of a "Country manager". We cannot imagine what should it be. No, we use the term 'Prime Minister', although at the moment there is some debate as to whether ours is in charge. A...

I don't agree: it takes the capital letter even if the quality of the man is cheap ! It's the difference between "aggettivo" and "aggettivo sostantivato". On reflection I had overlooked that and I fully agree. In Italian the capital letter is preferred for nouns which indicate m...

Here is another peculiarity of Italian (and Triestin) and English, the use of capital letters (maiuscoli). In English the convention is that all titles of books, songs, films, etc, are written with capitalised words: A Tale Of Two Cities ; For Whom The Bell Tolls ; Collins English Dictionary - but n...

I have been in Ireland last month, in an organised tour. I've seen that they started to use italian words for different drinks with some coffee in them. Latte , that means milk and comes from our caffelatte=coffee and milk . It is a big glass filled with a very loooooong coffee and some milk. Capuc...

Mac You might also mention the word 'Sympatico' which is used, in my view anyway, to convey exactly the same as it's Italian meaning. Ron The Italian word imported into English is simpatico , the 'y' spelling is in sympathy (the sharing of emotion, especially sorrow or pity) but not in simpatico . ...

Other Italian words that are commonly used in the English language are bravo , when applauding a musical feat ... Recently we had a programme on BBC teaching celebrities, both men and women, how to conduct an orchestra in four weeks; it was called 'Maestro'. Some of the women were quite good and th...

There are, as you know, many English words in Italian. But it is not a one way street, English is rich in Italian words Two fairly recent Italian imports are bimbo (plural bimbos ), to describe an attractive but empty headed young woman, and scenario (plural scenarios ) for a predictable sequence of...

Going back to the statue, I think that in the USA they've got two different statues. one is called "of liberty" and the other one is "of freedom". The Statue of Liberty was a gift from France to the American people. It's official title was, and still is, 'Liberty Enlightening th...

PeterG would probably extend with examples about the correct use of the words liberty and freedom . I do believe that basically both means the same: libertá . However, in the common language liberty has a slightly negative meaning. For instance, You took a liberty ... A phrase also used in Italian:...