Italy By Numbers: Law-Abiding Vacations

Posted on by
Reply

30 million Italians on vacation (est.)
6,300 flights over weekend
10 mile back-ups (average) on autostrade
6 cops sent from North to keep law in South

About half the country is on vacation the first two weeks in August, known as the ‘summer exodus.’ Most Italians spent the first hours of a much- awaited break in line on the autostrada — in some places like Barberino and Firenze sud up to 25 miles. Despite campaigns urging Italians to take vacations in alternate periods, both Premier Silvio Berlusconi and President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi are relaxing on the isle of Sardinia. Berlusconi is vacationing at his Costa Smeralda villa, with guests including British Prime Minister Tony Blair and family.

Those vacationing on the beautiful isle of Procida (near Naples) will have to mind their manners — the law will be enforced by a police force from Bergamo. The summer reinforcements raised more than a few eyebrows since the police come from a stronghold of secessionist party Lega Nord to keep law in the presumably laissez-faire South.
"We needed someone from outside to keep things above board," said mayor Luigi Muro. "We all know each other here and sometimes that isn’t a good thing." The regular police force, 13 strong, can’t keep up with the nearly tripled summer population.

Related resources:
Eating in Italy: A Traveler’s Guide to Hidden Gastronomic Pleasures
Required reading for your next Italy visit…

The Bug Zapper: Nitpick these Instructions!

Posted on by
Reply

It’s mosquito season and what better way to test your Italian than nitpick for errors in this instruction manual for an electric bug zapper. Everyday proof that universal translators are far from perfect…The first reader to send back a “debugged” Italian version wins an Italian mosquito kit complete with a citronella candle and itch creme, as well as our unending admiration.?1999-2004 zoomata.com

Zoomata is the brainchild of a bilingualjournalist based in Italy who thinks out of the box. This brain is for hire.

Durante l’utillizzazione di apparecchiature elettriche, specialmente alla presenza di bambini, tutte le precauzioni di base devono essere seguite, incluse le seguenti.

Non lasciarlo cadere o farlo cadere in acqua o altro liquido. Se e caduto nell’acqua staccare prima immediatemente la spina.

E’ necessaria una supervisione attenta quando l’apparecchio viene usato da bambini o vicino ad essi o ad invalidi.

Non abbandoni l’apparecchio senza cura quando è in funzione. Tenga il cavo dalle superficie riscaldate.

Non funziona qualunque apparecchio o è stato danneggiato un qualungue maniera.

Non gocciola o inserisce oggetti qualunque in qualunque apertura perché questo può causare un colpo electtrico.

Non mette parte calda dell’unità superficie sensibile del calore quando è caldo.

 Per evitare l’azzardo della scottatura, non lascia superficie riscaldate a toccare il pelle nudo.

Questo apparecchio dovrebbe essere messo un magazino mai quando è caldo o quando è ancora collegato col corrente.

Questo prodotto è inteso per famiglia usa solo.

Non usarlo vicino alle vasche, bacini o altri vasi che contengono acqua.

Conservare Queste istruzioni

Earning a Living from Coins in Trevi Fountain

Posted on by
Reply

Making a living from change tossed into a fountain is an unusual job — but a perfectly legal way to put bread on the table. Italian courts ruled that Roberto Cercelletta, who has been scooping out coins tossed into Rome’s Trevi fountain for about 20 years, is not stealing public money. Charities who wish to collect the money, however, have announced a public battle against him.

Cercelletta, nicknamed “D’Artagnan” after the famous musketeer, gets his hands into the gelid water’s in one of Rome’s most famous landmarks between 5 and 6 a.m. six days a week.The enterprising citizen and two assistants don florescent vests of the local electrical/water company, though they fool no one. Cercelletta, responsible for breaking the nose of an ‘interfering’ officer, has been fined by police hundreds of times, but has yet to pay any tickets. On Wednesday, he jumped into the fountain and slashed his belly to protest the new measures against him.

Officially unemployed, the daily harvest of cents, yen and euro earns him the salary of a prince: an estimated 180,000 USD a year. Not bad for about 15 minutes of work per day. City officials announced they will start collecting the money — on behalf of charity Caritas — and plan to install a motion detector and alarm in the fountain to discourage treasure hunters.

Tourists from around the world stand with their backs to the 1762 fountain and toss coins over the left shoulder– based on the superstition that if they do they will return to the Eternal City one day. Charity organization Caritas, which retrieves the money on Sundays when Cercelletta takes a day off, tried to get a court order to stop him. The court ruled that the money belonged to no one and Cercelletta plans to continute raking it in — candidating himself for the official job with the city if needs be. The fountain has long been a part of city iconography — thanks in part to films like "Three Coins in a Fountain" and the famous romp by Anita Ekberg in "La Dolce Vita."

Related resources:
La Dolce Vita

Italy By Numbers: Italian-English Dictionary

Posted on by
Reply

+7,000 words added
75% new words (circa) high-tech related
145,000 words total
+200 false friends

The authoritative Italian-English 2003 dictionary published by Zingarelli presents an interesting dilemma for students of contemporary Italian. Most of the new terms — the last edition was published in 1995, before the Internet made much headway in the Bel Paese — are simply the adoption of words from English.

Some examples are spamming, browser, e-zine, firewall which do not have direct correspondents in Italian. No guide is given to how these words are actually pronounced by Italians, so unless the English speaker is adept at rolling out the vowels he or she is likely to be misunderstood — and resort to long-winded explanations like "flooding the mail box (of other users) with undesired messages" for terms like spamming.
False friends continue to grow — evidenced in the dictionary by an exclamation mark and the explicit warning ‘do not translate this way’. Among these tricky terms, the correct translations are: incumbent (in carica) inconsistent (contraddittorio), eventually (alla fine) attitude (atteggiamento).

Related resources:
2001 Italian & English Idioms
More on every day speak…

Teach Yourself Beginner’s Italian
Jump start your command of the language with this reader favorite…

Debate Over Patron Saint of Italy

Posted on by
1

The Italian senate is bitterly divided over who will become the official patron saint of Italy. In the running are two much-loved saints, St. Francis of Assisi and St. Joseph, with the adoptive father of Jesus ahead three to one.

The new bank holiday must crowd into a calendar where most cities already shut down for the local patron saint (Milan for St. Ambrose, Naples for St. Gennaro, Bologna for St. Petronius, just to name a few) so for cost reasons, only one saint can be chosen.

The debate is drawn not across political lines but geographical ones — the three main proponents for St. Francesco all have their power bases in or near Assisi. The majority pushing for St. Giuseppe, on the other hand, has been accused of favoring the date over the saint: the new holiday would fall in the spring (March 19) as opposed to a less desirable one in the fall with St. Francis (Oct. 4). The doubling up of holidays has also been called into play — St. Joseph, also the patron saint of carpenters, is already celebrated in Italy as Father’s day.

Web-wise July 29-Aug 6

Posted on by
Reply

Web-wise July 29-Aug 6

Italian practice: writing love letters • Plan Your Route, Check Traffic Online • Biagio Antonacci’s Ballads — MP3 • Farm Holiday Database

Italian practice: writing love letters
Plenty of ideas & pre-written messages for the amorous who need a little help. Click on ‘personali’ for live chats with the editorial staff to help you say exactly what you mean…
www.scrivimiamore.it

Plan Your Route, Check Traffic Online
Calculate your route on the Italian autostrada — down to exactly which exit you want to get off or specifying which cities you do not want to pass through. Traffic information & rest stops…
www2.autostrade.it

Farm Holiday Database
Looking for a last-minute agriturismo? Check for prices & availability throughout Italy here. In English & Italian.
www.italytourist.it/index_eng.html

Biagio Antonacci’s Ballads — MP3
One of Italy’s enduring rock stars, on tour promoting his latest effort "Tra le Mie Canzoni", has put up a generous selection of tracks from his albums at the official site in MP3. Click on "discografia" then on the various album covers for track listings.
www.antonacci.com

Like what you hear? To order:
Mi fai stare bene

Tutte le mie canzoni

Get zoomata news free in your mailbox weekly, sign up here .

‘Room with a View’ Hotel Reopens after Bombing

Posted on by
Reply

Almost ten years after a Mafia bombing ripped it apart, the ‘Room with a View’ hotel has reopened in Florence.
Room number 411 of Hotel degli Orafi was used to frame the unforgettable kiss between newlyweds Lucy and George in the film version of the E.M. Forster classic — because the hotel stand-in for the fictional Pensione Bertolini had, in fact, no view.

The night of May 27, a Mafia bomb near the Uffizi tore apart the most historically dense center of the city — killing five people, injuring over 100, damaging art works, destroying the Gergofili Academy as well as historic hotels like the Orafi and the Hotel-Pensione Quisisana, which also had a part in the 1986 film. After nine years of restoration, the hotel with its famous view to the Ponte Vecchio has opened to guests again.

Related resources:
Read this classic tale of Italy’s influence on a young woman’s life

Take a virtual visit to Florence with the film version…

Photo gallery of the destruction & restoration of the hotel…

The Dubious Crown of Miss Chubby

Posted on by
Reply

So much for fat is beautiful: Italy’s recently-elected Miss Chubby, weighing in at 427 lbs, confessed she would like to lose a few pounds.

Thirty-six year old Maria Dore, a housewife whose cites pizza with mushrooms as a favorite food, won the crown of the 14th-annual contest but admitted shortly afterwards that her girth ‘weighs on her.’
Dore beat out 40 bountiful beauties in the Miss Cicciona Contest, all of whom weighed at least 220 pounds. Contest founder Gianfranco Lazzereschi, after many years in the fashion industry, got the idea for a lighthearted contest for ‘people of a certain weight’ and says the biggest obstacle was convincing the public it wasn’t meant to insult the oversized.

Most Italians, however, would rather undergo surgery than be obese – spending some $22 million USD yearly for surgery to shave off extra pounds. At around 15% of men and 21% of women, Italians are half as obese as U.S. residents.

Related resources:
The Mediterranean diet: getting back to healthy roots…

Italy by Numbers: Taking it Easy?

Posted on by
Reply

28.7% Italian men work Saturdays
21.3% EU men work Saturdays
31.7% Italian women work Saturdays
24.2% EU women work Saturdays

Statistics bear out what many residents of the Bel Paese have long suspected: the country’s legendary disorganization doesn’t lead to a more relaxed lifestyle but in fact a longer working week.
The numbers, which come from a Eurostat study, show that ‘laid back’ Italians work more than supposedly nose-to-the-grindstone counterparts in countries like Germany, Denmark and the UK. Sundays, however, are still considered a day of rest for most Italians — only 7.4% men and 5.7% of women work the last day of the week, compared to the EU average of 10.7%.