cafone

cafone
peasant, bumpkin, hick

Every country has its share of jerks, clods and ignorant slobs, but Italian reserves the word “cafone” (pronounced cah-fon-ay) for its home-grown variety. This utterly Italian insult traces its history back to Cafo or Cafonis, a centurion of Mark Anthony, mentioned several times by Cicero. Its linguistic pedigree includes a debut in Italian literature in 1861, the year of the nation’s unification, in a publication called La perseveranza (Perseverance).

Cafone can apply to any generic dork, but Italian offers distinctions for the son of an ignorant bumpkin (figlio d’un cafone), a crude slob (cafone rozzo), a tasteless boob (cafone sciocco), an ill-mannered fool (cafone maleducato), an officious ass (cafone impertinente), a tasteless jerk (cafone senza gusto), and a disgusting boor (cafone ripugnante).

The most recent Galateo (Italian etiquette book) includes a “dizionario delle cafonate,” an alphabetical listing of boorish behaviors that include throwing chewing gum on the ground per la gioia delle suole altrui (for the joy of others’ soles); sticking a finger into un pertugio del corpo (a body opening), grattarsi ostentatamente (scratching oneself ostentatiously) and using fingernails as stuzzicadenti (toothpicks).

I have used cafone exactly once—at a free concert celebrating April 21, Rome’s official birthday, at the city’s opera house. The mainly elderly Romans, dressed smartly (as their generation always does), were already seated when a pudgy foreigner in shorts and a tee shirt squeezed into our row to take the empty seat next to mine.

“Please don’t let him be American,” I prayed, but as soon as I heard his string of “Excuse me’s,” I knew he was. Just as he sat down, he erupted into a volcanic sneeze. Obviously lacking a handkerchief, he blotted his nose with the back of one hand and then wiped it dry on his hairy thigh. The appalled woman on my other side and I locked eyes and almost simultaneously mouthed the same words, “Che cafone!”

Cafone also can refer to something molto buono (very good): pane cafone, the simple daily bread of Naples and the surrounding region. You don’t need Italian to follow this basic recipe. Just watch Mr. Bread at work:



Sayings and Expressions:

If you encounter a cafone:
Ma Lei, cafone ci è nato o ci è diventato? -- Were you born rude or did you become rude?

Synonyms (useful if you ever find yourself trading insults with a cafone): rozzo, villano, zotico, buzzurro, maleducato

goloso

goloso
crazy about a food

Dictionaries translate goloso as gluttonous. I disagree. Yes, it stems from the same word--gola (throat)—as in peccato di gola (sin of the throat, which may be my favorite kind). But like swine, gluttons snarf up everything edible. A goloso may be a buongustaio (food lover), a buona forchetta (hearty eater) or a ghiottone (gourmet) but also craves a particular type of food, such as cioccolata, nutella, supplì (Roman rice and cheese balls) or (in my case) fiori di zucca (fried zucchini flowers).

The Italian lust for food dates back to ancient Rome, where citizens savored exotic delicacies such as flamingo tongues, roasted swan, cherries from Asia, pistachio nuts from Syria and dates from Egypt. According to culinary lore, Nero was a goloso for flavored snow from nearby mountains—the original gelato.

The love of both food and language played a pivotal role in the creation of Italian as we know it. In the late Renaissance a group of irreverent young Florentine intellectuals set out to separate the literary equivalent of wheat from chaff. The members of L’Accademia della Crusca (the Academy of Bran) playfully gave themselves names related to cooking and baking, such as Lievito (yeast or leaven), Macinato (milled into flour) and Grattugiato (grated). Working diligently for decades, they produced Il Vocabolario della Crusca, the first great dictionary of officially recognized words in Italian—or in any European tongue.

Every year the Crusconi would gather for an annual stravizzo, a term they defined with understatement as “eating that happens together with pleasant conversation.” The menu from one stravizzo (its modern form stravizio denotes debauchery or excess) presents five staggering courses that included veal, tongue, prosciutto, pigeon, chicken, capon, lamb, meat rolls, soup, several varieties of pasta, artichokes, Parmigiano, strawberries, pears, peaches, biscotti—and stuzzicadenti (toothpicks).

By the end of such an eating orgy, each of the word-lovers was pieno come un uovo (full as an egg). Sooner or later many a goloso ends up that way.

Sayings and Expressions:

buongustaio -- food lover
buona forchetta -- hearty eater
ghiottone – gourmet
pieno come un uovo – stuffed (literally full as an egg)
prendere qualcuno per la gola -- get to someone through his love for food
(literally to take someone by the throat)

Ciao!

ciao

(chaow)

hello, goodbye

The cheery Italian ciao, which does double duty as “hi” and “bye,” dates back to the glittering heyday of the Venetian Republic. I learned its history on my first visit to La Serenissima (Italians’ nickname for the watery city) from a waiter at the café where I would sip espresso and watch the pigeons swoop across the Piazza di San Marco.

Ciao, he explained, was a local invention. Centuries ago Venice’s courtly correspondents signed letters, “Il Suo schiavo” (your slave). Meeting on the street, acquaintances would bow and repeat these ingratiating words. However, in the Venetian dialect, which softens the hard sound of sch (pronounced sk in other regions) to a chewy sh (as in show), Suo schiavo came out s’ciao or sciao, which melted into ciao as it migrated to other parts of Italy.

Despite its origin as a formal salutation, ciao has evolved into a casual greeting. Various teachers have instructed me to use ciao only with those I know by first name (and to include their names in the greeting, as in “Ciao, Luigi!”), with children or in informal settings like dances and tours.

Italian men of every age in any piazza cry out “Ciao, bella!” (Hi, beautiful!) to compliment passing lovelies. (None would stoop to a cheesy “Ciao, baby!”) Telephone conversations with my Italian friends end with a stream of ciao’s—not just the equivalent of bye-bye, but a rapid-fire ciao-ciao-ciao-ciao-ciao until one of us surrenders and hangs up.

When hundreds of thousands of Italians emigrated from their impoverished homeland in the late 1800s and early 1900s, they often lined the railings of the departing ships. Straining for a last glimpse of Italy, they stared at its coastline until it blurred into the horizon. One by one Italians bound for North or South America would whisper a final “ciao” to the country many never saw again.

During World War II, i partigiani, Italy’s underground fighters against Nazi Germany, a former ally, set new words to a workers’ folk song. “Bella, Ciao!” became the unofficial anthem of the resistance. Its lyrics tell of a young man who goes to fight with the partisans. If he dies, all he asks is be buried on the mountain, where a beautiful flower will bloom in memory of the partisan who died for freedom. Its chorus--“O bella, ciao! bella, ciao! bella, ciao, ciao, ciao!” (“Oh beautiful, goodbye. Beautiful, goodbye! Beautiful, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye!)—can still bring tears to the eyes of older Italians and stir the emotions of young Italians at political protests.

For a traditional rendition of this rousing tune, click on:

Expressions and Sayings:

Venetian dialect: “Oh, va be’, s’ciao!” -- “Okay, never mind!”

Milanese dialect: “Se gh’inn gh’inn, se gh’inn  no, s-ciao!”-- “If there is [money], there is; if there isn’t, goodbye!”