Italian Tip #3: Exaggerate Like a Pro
Italian Tips - 31 May 2007, 11:07
In Italian, you’re given a whole slew of ways to make your tall tales sound all the more interesting and believable. Attach these handy dandy suffixes to your favorite noun and really express how you feel.
Itty Bitty Teeny Weenie Things
This is the toughest of the three sections because there are four different suffixes you can use with no rules as to which suffix goes with which word. On the other hand, some words will work with any of the below suffixes. The choice of which one to use is simply based on what sounds right and even after two years of living here, I still get strange looks from Simona when I guess wrong. Here are the four suffixes to describe something smaller than normal and some examples of how to use them:
| Singular | Plural | ||
| M | F | M | F |
| -ino | -ina | -ini | -ine |
| -etto | -etta | -etti | -ette |
| -ello | -ella | -elli | -elle |
| -uccio | -uccia | -ucci | -ucce |
For example, to describe a small book:
- First you take the root word libro and drop the last vowel: Libr
o - Then choose the correct prefix above, in this case “etto,” and slap it onto the end of the word: Libretto
That’s all it takes. The word libro is a good example because you can probably figure out which suffix works best just by sounding each one out:
LibrinoLibrelloLibruccio
Libretto is the only one that sounds right.
Note: Simona just told me that “librello” is the only one that is absolutely wrong. The other two can be used, but “libretto” sounds the best.
Other examples:
- Can’t pay your bills with your monthly stipendio from work? That’s because they’re paying you a stipendino!
- Is your car so small that people think you work for a circus? You’re not driving a macchina, you’re driving a macchinetta!
- Is “it” really as tiny as they say? Then you don’t just have a piccolo pisello, you have a pisellino piccolissimo!
Ginormous Things
This one’s easier because I know of only one suffix to describe something larger than normal.
| Singular | Plural | ||
| M | F | M | F |
| -one | -ona | -oni | -one |
You can probably figure this one out pretty easily. Using the word libro again, you can describe a large tome by calling it a librone. Not every noun sounds right with this suffix, but here are some other examples:
- Giant mosquitoes, or zanzare, would be called zanzarone!
- Butt too big for those pants? That’s no culo, it’s a culone!
- If you walk out of a bar, you’re an ubriaco. If you crawl out of the bar, you’re an ubriacone!
Horrible, Dastardly Things
Like -one above, this one’s a cinch because there’s only one basic suffix. Adding this to just about any noun will turn it from something good into something bad, but as above, it all depends on come suona, or how it sounds.
| Singular | Plural | ||
| M | F | M | F |
| -accio | -accia | -acci | -acce |
Unlike the above examples, I don’t think I’d ever call a bad book a libraccio, so it doesn’t work for everything.
- A bad word, parola, would be a parolaccia!
- A gatto that wakes you up at 5am every morning because he wants to play after meowing for no reason all god damned night would be called a gattaccio!
Conclusione
By now you should have a good handle on how to embellish your tales in Italian. Now go out into the world and use your new exaggerating abilities to make even the most dull of trips to the grocery store sound like the adventure of a lifetime.
Tomorrow’s post: My trip to the storaccio!
U R so funny!Thanks for the lesson. (Poor Lucy)
Ha, very funny I like how you write.
I love this page!
For the real PROs, let’s take this particular tip to the next level and also explain how us whackos use these very same suffixes in conjunction with gender changes in our word-formation :)
In English you miss the power of varying size and gender of the objects, so you resort to putting multiple words together to create a new word, as in cue-ball, manhole, sunroof, moonroof, car window…
Our approach is quite different, and i reckon it must be very tough for a foreigner… more than it is for us to understand why for the French the sand is masculine (what a disgust!!! I’ve been lying on cliffs ever since I made this discovery!)
freccia : feminine, arrow
freccette : feminine, small and plural, darts
tomba : feminine, tomb
tombino : masculine (!) and small, manhole
palla : feminine, ball
pallina : feminine and small, the dog’s ball
pallone : masculine (!) and big, the soccer ball
pallino : masculine (!) and small, cue ball or golf ball
finestra : feminine, window
finestrino : masculine (!) and small, car window
finestrone : masculine (!) and bug, something like a stained-glass window, but not actually stained ;-)
pendolo : masculine, a pendulum
pendolino : masculine and small, a (supposedly :) fast train for commuters
macchina : feminine, car
macchinina : feminine and small, toy car
macchinetta : feminine and small, food/drink dispenser
macchinona : feminine and big, a penis extension (a big car)
macchinone : masculine (!) and big, same as above, perhaps more emphatic
secchio : masculine, bucket
secchiello : masculine and small, toy bucket kids use to build sandcastles
secchione : masculine and big, a smart-ass grind
calza : feminine, sock
calzino : masculine (!) and small, short sock
calzone : masculine (!) and big, a trouser (a single leg) or a pizza that has been folded over before being baked
calzoni : same as above but plural, trousers, or multiple folded pizzas, of course!
calzettoni : masculine (!) small but at the same time big, plural,
mezza calzetta : feminine, “half sock”, non-vulgar expression to denote a useless person, closely related to a quite vulgar one ;-)
cazzo : masculine, vulgar but common-use expression for the male sex
cazzone : masculine and big, a jerk (of course it may also retain the literal meaning)
cazzino : masculine and small, the same as pisellino in your example above
tetto : masculine, roof
tettuccio apribile : masculine, small and that can be opened, sunroof (or a moonroof if you drive a fiat)
foglia : feminine, leaf
foglio : masculine (!), sheet
foglietto : masculine(!) and small, a note (possibly sticky)
fogliolina : feminine and small, one of those small leaves with a nice shape that you’d want to keep in the middle of a book
Mmm… I think it’s fairly enough at 2:30 AM, I shall call it a day :)