3897 A little language is a dangerous thing...

When I was an English Language assistant in an Italian school as part of my degree course (back in 1973/4) I shared a flat with some university friends who were doing their year abroad in Rome. One was a very pleasant but rather proper young girl who had started Italian from scratch at uni. In the first few weeks we made friends with some young Romans and went out for a meal with them. One chap was eating something which this young lady took an interest in and he offered her a taste.
'Solo un bocchino, per favore', she replied.
We fell about laughing, of course. She had thought, reasonably enough, that 'bocchino' means a 'small mouthful' which it sort of does - but not of food....She turned a very bright red when it fell to me to explain the nature of her error.:D

Category
Che significa? - Italian Language Queries

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 06/06/2006 - 15:19

...........and you know that both the fig tree and the fruit are masculine.....:) :)

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 06/06/2006 - 16:18

Both these posts made me smile.. the first because it reminded me of a very rude song I learnt many years ago.. and the second because it reminded me of what I once asked for a kilo of.. :D

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 06/06/2006 - 16:24

......"a kilo"....there is a relevant song by Queen........can you work out which song I am thinking of!!......

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 06/07/2006 - 05:07

Nice one, Neil!!! :D :D

Reminds me of some traps I fell into just after coming to the UK from Germany ... lol...

One I'll always remember was when I worked for solicitors in Chertsey, doing audio typing, he mentioned something to do with fascias ... and I wrote faeces .... needless to say they were in fits! ;) :o

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 06/07/2006 - 09:12

Relaxed I can think of a few:
Dirty Mind-------I want it all------Feel the force-------Coming soon---------Beautiful dreams--------don't lose your head-------:o