You might actually be puzzled as to why Italians associate the colour green with being penniless seeing as, in the English-speaking world, the most popular hue for such delicate matters is red. #TU VUO FA LAMERICANO TESTO HOW TO#Now that you have a basic grasp of how to use the expression, you might be wondering where ‘ essere al verde’ came from. – Surely, the Carroccio’s finances are strained at the moment. – Di certo oggi i conti del Carroccio sono al verde. Un gran casino, diciamolo.As you can see from the above examples, the expression is mostly used in informal, ordinary conversations, though it is sometimes used in published pieces of work, especially in rather humorous and/or provocative newspaper articles and comic books. I’m Swiss, actually, ok, the whole Gino adventure has been a big, lucky mess. I myself am NOT from Naples, nor have I ever been there. Sort of a second-generation Italian, Mafioso style. I got it from Weird Al, actually: in “La Lasagna”, his parody of “La Bamba”, he sings “Capish paisà, capish paisà?”=”do you understand, mate?”, but I never heard it anywhere else. Oh, and “Capisc'”: I’m not sure it’s a real word. The grammar in that sentence is completely borked, and SO MUCH satisfying. To “schifare” something is a, uhm, proactive version of “being disgusted by”: “Ti schifo e ti sputo”, literally: I disgust you and I spit you, meaning “I find you disgusting and I spit on you”. Usually you’d say “mi schifa” as a colloquial version of “mi fa schifo”, “it does/provokes me disgust”=”it disgusts me”. There isn’t a real translation for “schifare” in this meaning. “Skif'”, with a K? The right spelling is “schif'”, from “schifare”, which in turn comes from “schifo”, disgust. The real word for a turban is “tammuriell'”, and it was “too” Neapolitan for the rest of Italy, so we made up a word. It’s probably easier to understand by listening than by reading the subtitles – I’m pretty sure some words aren’t spelled like that. Which is pretty incredible a feat for web contents made in Italy (/Switzerland) in 2001.Īnd yes, it’s “Neapolitan”-ish, although Northern Italians shouldn’t have any problems understanding it. It got an estimated 5+ millions downloads in a time when there were no Youtube, no social networks and no search engines, just by word of mouth. The written lyrics are somewhat wrong, just a few words here and there I guess this was an unpolished version and that it was redone a couple weeks later, when it became a meme. Not my “true” voice, mind you: it’s pitched up a few tones. Oh, btw: I’m a language nerd, the singer in this parody, and the Official Singing Voice for Gino The Chicken. I can’t believe I’m stumbling on this 18 years after the “fact” – and that somebody would still listen to this in 2012. Will anybody ever read this? Oh well, whatever. Understand, Osama, you want to be a Taleban Tu vuo’ fa ‘o talebano, talebano, talebano, You Want to Be a Taliban Tienni la barba longa chiu’ d’un metro, Today a reader comment on my translation of Tu Vuo’ Fa’ L’Americano directed me to YouTube, where I ran across Gino’s version of the song, directed at Osama bin Laden: “Gino the Chicken” was a phenomenon in Italy a few years ago.
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