thread: 2011-11-06 : Italy Story 1
On 2011-11-07, Jay Loomis wrote:
When I was in Italy in the Air Force years ago, there were a bunch of young guys who liked to hang out with the Americans. We asked them about their derogatory terms for different sorts of people, hoping to learn some colloquial Italian. They claimed they had none for Americans, but were likely bullshitting us, they seemed generally at a loss for describing other Europeans, but, when we started talking about what they called Italians from somewhere else (especially southern Italy, as I was near Venice in the north) they had a rapid-fire list of insults that we couldn't keep up with.
Also, they explained to us how they have to learn several different dialects of Italian in school: textbook Italian, the regional dialect, and the local flavor. I guess that's what you get in a land where nationalism never really happened.
