guidoLaMoto Posted February 9 Report Share Posted February 9 There's the story of the city slicker who was hopelessly lost driving thru the hills of rural America. He stopped to ask a local sitting on his porch how to get to a certain desired destination?... The rube answered "I don't think you can get there from here." So it is with this analysis of how the Latin greeting "Servus humilimus sum." (I am your humble servant) gets convolutedly morphed thru the ages into the nearly universal slang greeting of "Ciao!" https://duckduckgo.com/?t=avast&q=luke+ranieri+latin&iax=videos&ia=videos&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DZAsNO9eXLgM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caesar novus Posted February 9 Report Share Posted February 9 (edited) Ciao is supposed to retain it's intimate origin by not being used with strangers by Italians according to https://italyexplained.com/the-history-of-the-word-ciao-why-you-shouldnt-say-it-in-italy/ . Sort of like another hello/goodbye word aloha. But the foreign enthusiasm for the word detached from it's origin may seep into Italy. I am surprised foreigners properly pronounce the Italian i as h (ciao=chow) and (lasagna=lazonya) and (pizza=peetsa). But they don't remain true to phonetic rules to harden the ch in bruschetta or silence the first i in Gianni. Word origins may sometimes carry almost no meaning except as a random seed for a utilitarian word or phrase. The most annoying of such is to reward a sloppy malignant sneezer with a blessing which happens in several languages as a vacuous placeholder according to video below. I propose the sneeze response instead to demand accountability, as in "can't you spare a penny for your allergy with an antihistamine?" or "don't you ever wash your hands?" or "wear a dustmask when you vacuum, knucklehead!". P.S. this post was composed during a 5.7 magnitude earthquake, but power is still up... Edited February 9 by caesar novus Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
guidoLaMoto Posted February 10 Author Report Share Posted February 10 I hope everything is alright by you... In regards responses to sneezing, IIRC, in past ages they thought your heart stopped during a sneeze, hence the call for God to bless you...I always thought it ironic that a little bitty sneeze rates a "God bless you," but if someone is coughing a lung out with TB, we just wait patiently and pick up the conversation as if nothing happened when he's finally done... JFK's famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech at The Wall in '63 was given in English and translated simultaneously in German over a loudspeaker to the crowd. He ended the speech with "...and may God bless you."...The crowd then stood in dumbfounded silence instead of an enthusiastic round of applause because the translator was a bit confused and ended the speech with "...und Gesundheit." You're right about the use of "Ciao" in Italy. here's a short piece about that and other faux pas to be best avoided by tourists. https://duckduckgo.com/?t=avast&q=easy+italian&iax=videos&ia=videos&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DFrMVRGuYxXw In regards the pronunciation of bruschetta-- I think the rules are different when -sch-i or -e is involved. Without the H, it would be broos-chetta, and if you follow the rule about h between c and i or e, it would be broos- ketta. Neither is right....Not that I'm anywhere near fluent in Italian, but I can't think of any example of the -sh combination in an Italian word. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caesar novus Posted February 11 Report Share Posted February 11 (edited) 18 hours ago, guidoLaMoto said: it would be broos- ketta. Neither is right I'm still clinging to the hard c approach, as claimed in wiki: Italian: [bruˈsketta]. Once an effete waitress on Oxford campus condescendingly corrected me with the sh sound, and regardless of her Nobel prizes I want to think my way was closer to correct. Otherwise my only claim to worldly distinction was once being asked directions by a UPS man in my first few minutes in London. I may have been helpful since I memorize maps of new places rather than use anything digital. Quote hope everything is alright by you... We were one magnitude short of looting in the streets, which happens with extended power outages even among gentle acculturated people. The issue of structural safety is more slow-burn, with tension cables stealthily snapping within concrete. Takes a few years to catastrophically fail... or be found and fixed. Tension cables seem a nasty invention less forgiving than rebar. Edited February 11 by caesar novus Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
guidoLaMoto Posted February 11 Author Report Share Posted February 11 I stand corrected (You learn something new everyday.) https://duckduckgo.com/?t=avast&q=pronunciation+of+bruschetta+audio&iax=videos&ia=videos&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DUZqrUrJXhd8 My Sicilian grandmother would be surprised to hear this too. Cicero, IL is a suburb of Chicago. Al Capone made it his home, and to this day there are still a sizeable number of Italian immigrants living there....It always brings a smile when they pronounce it Chee-cher-o. ___ __ __ I didn't know that about the cable vs rebar...I guess they prefer the inspections to relying on faith alone after sacrificing a virgin...or is that just for volcanoes? I'm getting a little long in the tooth to be homesteading here in WI-- a lot of manual labor involved. The wife wants us to move to Honolulu where she lived for several yrs in the '70s...I think she may be reminiscing about her days as a lifeguard there and thinks she'll still look the same as she did then in her bikini. I don't have the heart to burst her bubble. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caesar novus Posted February 12 Report Share Posted February 12 (edited) 12 hours ago, guidoLaMoto said: wife wants us to move to Honolulu Retirees may find an arbitrage opportunity for mainland vs Honolulu real estate. The former high vs the latter maybe impacted by China's real estate crash. I know someone who did this during Japan's crash a couple decades ago. Wealthy Chinese invested in various Honolulu luxury towers just for asset hiding; rarely actually occupied I believe. Desperation sales may arise, but often for units intended for transient time shares with the associated fees. But U.S. mainlanders rarely last more than a few years in Hawaii, which has unique flavors of dysfunction yet strives to adopt California type dysfunction. Edited February 12 by caesar novus Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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