Following certain controversies in the municipality of Bagni di Lucca regarding the use of other languages ​​in official procedural documents I wish to contribute to this discussion.

Enough of these Anglicisms that are always entering the beautiful Italian language like an invasion of rats in the city!

In just one sentence, delivered during the RAI news this morning, I noticed five of these deadly sins against the Italian language. Here they are:

• ‘Benchmark’ – literally ‘sign on the bench’ but used in surveying. Today more than ever it signifies the measure of quality. So why not say ‘prestazione’?

• The ‘under sessanta’. There is, however, an Italian word to say ‘under’. Use it! The ‘sotto sessanta’. Like the ‘over sixties’. Why not say ‘sopra sessanta’ instead?
• Then there is ‘welfare’. The English word ‘welfare’ means ‘well-being’ and ‘public welfare’ means ‘public health’. Thus the use of the English term in the Italian language is incorrect. The phrase ‘benessere sociale’ should be used instead. Then in English there are no genders of nouns such as masculine and feminine in Italian. So why should ‘welfare’ be a masculine noun in Italian? Could it not be equally feminine?

• The most terrible of all these sordid Anglicisms is the infamous ‘recovery plan’ nazionale. Now ‘recovery’ in English means restitution to health’. Pronounced by an Italian, you seem to hear the word ‘ricovero’ or ‘hospitalization’ which means something entirely different: a person that has been admitted to a hospital for treatment. Say ‘Piano di Recupero’, please!

• The other day a friend was talking to me about ‘smartworking’. Sorry but there is the word ‘telelavoro’ to describe this mode of operation which is being used more than ever during the pandemic.

• If I hear another Italian who, meeting today, uses a ghastly Anglicism, I will correct him/her immediately and if the person ofUfers an apology that Italian is now spoken like this, I will reply that when Dante wrote the ‘Divine Comedy’, the English language was not yet in currency, in the British Isles which, instead, used Celtic (still spoken in Ireland, Scotland and, especially, Wales) or Middle English. In addition I would say that it was the English who have been thieves of Italian vocabulary, especially in terms of music. For example, ‘Allegro’, ‘andante’, ‘lento’ describe the tempi (or tempos?) in English musical scores instead of ‘happy’, ‘at a walking pace’, ‘slow’ (pace Percy Grainger). Not to mention artistic terms such as ‘chiaroscuro’, etc.

Why not be ashamed of abusing the Italian language in this philistine way?

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