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Genteelisms are a curse in Italy, where bureaucracy reaches levels unknown in the UK. One of my favourites, because of its utter, revealing stupidity, is the sp

by Udik 9y ago

Genteelisms are a curse in Italy, where bureaucracy reaches levels unknown in the UK. One of my favourites, because of its utter, revealing stupidity, is the sporadic usage by some overzealous bureaucrat of the verb "to implement" (recently brought to Italian from English) with the wrong meaning of "increment". As in: "We're working to implement the number of bus rides from A to B". It's fun because you can clearly see the mechanism in action: the person who wrote the sentence decided to replace the too understandable verb "to increment" with something so obscure he himself didn't know what it really means.

jaclaz 9y ago
I would like to bring to your attention (as an Italian) the recorded voice message now in use on highways when you pay the toll via credit card/bancomat (they are changing the readers from reading the magnetic band to reading the chip, so you have to insert the card in the reader and keep it inserted a few seconds until the flashing yellow leds become green) while a (very serious and authoritative sounding) female voice says: "Attendere, validazione in corso." [english]Wait, validation is under way.[/english] Soon followed, as soon as the leds become green, by a (much higher pitch and happy sounding) different (still female) voice: "Ritirare la tessera" [english]Pick up the card[/english]
- Noumenon72 9y ago
  How does this relate to his point about genteelisms or using words that don't mean what the user thinks they mean?
  - jaclaz 9y ago
    >How does this relate to his point about genteelisms or using words that don't mean what the user thinks they mean? "Validazione" is not a word used by anyone outside some specific tech sectors or bureaucrats, a number of people would be perplexed about its meaning. I guess in English is the same, would you use "Wait, validation is under way" or "Wait, reading the card" or "Wait, checking the card info". There is an old (by now noone notices it but it was a thing when it was introduced) precedent with the verb "obliterare" which noone knew at the time it was introduced on buses. A sign "E' obbligatorio procedere all'obliterazione del biglietto" is (was) something that noone could understand. [english]It is compulsory to proceed to the obliteration of the ticket[/english] Obliterare is a perfectly valid verb, but it means - literally - to cancel a writing by drawing a line over it, and it was used only by academics and people of letters, while by extension it has a more common meaning of completely destroy/delete something/someone (from existence or from memory), etc. At a given time it was "invented" to mean "insert the ticket into the machine so that it will be timestamped (or only stamped) and/or punched or have a corner cut in such a way that it won't be re-usable". The same meaning of "to obliterate" for "to stamp" or " to punch" a ticket is in English as well, I believe. And "the machine" was called "obliteratrice" of course.

by Udik 9y ago

jaclaz 9y ago

I would like to bring to your attention (as an Italian) the recorded voice message now in use on highways when you pay the toll via credit card/bancomat (they are changing the readers from reading the magnetic band to reading the chip, so you have to insert the card in the reader and keep it inserted a few seconds until the flashing yellow leds become green) while a (very serious and authoritative sounding) female voice says: "Attendere, validazione in corso." [english]Wait, validation is under way.[/english] Soon followed, as soon as the leds become green, by a (much higher pitch and happy sounding) different (still female) voice: "Ritirare la tessera" [english]Pick up the card[/english]

Noumenon72 9y ago
How does this relate to his point about genteelisms or using words that don't mean what the user thinks they mean?
- jaclaz 9y ago
  >How does this relate to his point about genteelisms or using words that don't mean what the user thinks they mean? "Validazione" is not a word used by anyone outside some specific tech sectors or bureaucrats, a number of people would be perplexed about its meaning. I guess in English is the same, would you use "Wait, validation is under way" or "Wait, reading the card" or "Wait, checking the card info". There is an old (by now noone notices it but it was a thing when it was introduced) precedent with the verb "obliterare" which noone knew at the time it was introduced on buses. A sign "E' obbligatorio procedere all'obliterazione del biglietto" is (was) something that noone could understand. [english]It is compulsory to proceed to the obliteration of the ticket[/english] Obliterare is a perfectly valid verb, but it means - literally - to cancel a writing by drawing a line over it, and it was used only by academics and people of letters, while by extension it has a more common meaning of completely destroy/delete something/someone (from existence or from memory), etc. At a given time it was "invented" to mean "insert the ticket into the machine so that it will be timestamped (or only stamped) and/or punched or have a corner cut in such a way that it won't be re-usable". The same meaning of "to obliterate" for "to stamp" or " to punch" a ticket is in English as well, I believe. And "the machine" was called "obliteratrice" of course.