I'll Choose Correct, If You Don't Mind. Or Even If You Do
I was in an eatery the other day that touted the fact that they had paninis for sale. And the menu listed all the paninis individually. You could have a chicken panini, a ham and swiss panini, a turkey panini, a roasted tomato and mozzarella panini, and a bunch more paninis. There's only one problem: you can't
You say, “What do you mean? Of course
I can have a panini. Lot's of
places sell paninis.”
<Sigh>
You can't have a panini
because “panini” is plural. And you can't sell paninis because
“paninis” isn't a word. You don't make something that is already
plural more plural by adding an “s” to it. Now, if you want a
nice Italian sandwich and you order a chicken (or ham or turkey or
whatever) panino, I'm
sure it will not only be delicious, it will also be grammatically
correct. And if you order two or more of them, then you will, indeed,
have panini on your
plate. You will not, however, have “paninis,” for such do not
exist.
The
same applies if you order those wonderfully rich and filling little
pillows of stuffed pasta. If you have a bowlful, you have ravioli. If
you stick a fork in one and eat it, you have consumed a raviolo.
And you can't have “raviolis”
for the same reason you can't have “paninis.”
“Pish
posh,” you say (especially if you're Mary Poppins.) “Nobody
really says 'panino' and 'raviolo'.” To which I reply, “Italians
do, and so do people who want to be right.”
Please
don't start singing the old “common usage” or “colloquialism”
songs. I've heard them a hundred times and they don't get any better
with repetition. I'm told, “A word becomes a part of the language
through common usage; it's called a 'colloquialism'.” Okay, in the
first place, a word that is incorrectly used is still incorrect, no
matter how often it is incorrectly used. And if you look up
“colloquialism,” you will find that it is defined as a word used
in informal speech in place of a
more formally accepted word. None of which makes it right,
thankyewverymuch.
It is
a part of English-speaking arrogance, I suppose, that assumes every
language in the world pluralizes by adding the letter “s.”
Italian does not. Italian nouns are made plural by changing the
ending of the word, often according to gender. Feminine nouns –
those that usually end in “a” – take the ending letter “e”
in their plural form. Masculine nouns that end in “o” take the
letter “i” in plural form. These are broad general rules, but I'm
trying to prove a specific point here, not give an in depth language
lesson. The point is, you don't put an “s” on any
Italian word to make it plural.
I got
into an argument with a Neapolitan friend of mine over cannoli.
I say the plural rules apply and
he disagrees. “You're right about the others,” he allows, “but
not about cannoli. It's
just cannoli, no
matter what.” I disagree with his disagreement. And I have several
other Italian friends and numerous dictionaries to back me up. You
can have cannoli, but
you can't have a cannoli. Or
“cannolis.”
Here are a few
other things you can't have: you can't have a cannelloni, you can't
have a manicotti, you can't have a crespelle, and you can't have a
gnocchi. Similarly, adding “s” to any of these words will not
make them plural-er, but it will get you eye rolls from Italians.
There
are a couple of words where I am almost forced to acknowledge the
application of the “common usage” ploy: one of them is zucchini
and the other is pizzas.
Although technically a single
squash fruit is a zucchina and
the correct plural is zucchine, it
becomes masculine and a zucchino in
the Tuscan dialect, the plural for which is zucchini. To
avoid all the confusion, just go with zucchini. I'm
forced to give that one up. Same thing for pizzas. A
single pie is a pizza; more
than one are pizze, but
“pizzas” is just so overwhelmingly prevalent. It's still wrong,
of course, and I bite my tongue
whenever I catch myself saying it. But that's a battle I'll lose, so
I don't fight it.
The
plural of “pasta” is paste, not
“pastas,” but that one usually gets a pass, too. And even though
there really are proper singular forms of spaghetti,
linguini, and macaroni,
such are classified as
“uncountable nouns” which have no plural form. (“Milk,” for
example, is an uncountable noun.)
And
lest you think people who spell “lasagne” with
an “e” are either stupid or pretentious, rest assured they are
neither. “Lasagne” is
the proper plural of “lasagna.” No “s,” per favore.
When you put a bunch of single lasagna noodles together, you get
lasagne, not
“lasagnas.”
A lot of people
criticize Giada De Laurentiis for what they consider her
over-pronouncing of Italian words like “spaghetti,” which she
enunciates as “spah-GAYT-tee.” Sorry, folks, but she's right. It
just sounds funny coming out of her mouth because, even though she
was born in Rome and didn't speak a word of English when she came
here as a child, she doesn't otherwise have an Italian accent. Her
aunt, Raffaella, or “Raffy,” as she calls her, has a very
pronounced accent, so Italian words sound more natural with her. But
when Giada the California girl properly says the same word, she gets
accused of being “fake” and “pretentious.”
I get similar
critiques and comments from people who think I'm “showing off” or
“putting on” when I correctly pronounce things in Italian. How
the hell you can be “pretentious” or a “show off” for
properly pronouncing a word is beyond me. I guess if people like
Giada and me would just stick to saying “spuh-GETTY” and
“MARE-uh-NARE-uh” like the “common usage” folks do, we'd be
in for less criticism. But we'd also be doing a great disservice to a
beautiful language. So, given the choice between being correct and
being “common,” I'll choose correct, if you don't mind. Or even
if you do.
I'm
going to quit now before I drag out my other “proper pronunciation”
soapbox, the one I mount when I want to talk about employees of
Italian restaurants who butcher the pronunciation of Italian dishes.
Servers in Mexican places would sound stupid if they talked about
“TACK-ohs” and “qwes-uh-DILL-uhs,” wouldn't they? But nobody
minds when Italian waiters say “broo-SHET-uh” and
“MARE-uh-NARE-uh.” My friends say, “Well, you shouldn't be so
critical. That's just the way they learned.” <deep breaths, deep
breaths> But I won't do that right now. I'm fine. Really. And I
like the sounds of
nails on a blackboard and squeaky tennis shoes on wet floors.
And I
wouldn't dream of advocating that you carry a black marker and fix
all those menus that have the word “panini█”
on them. But it's a thought.
Very interesting - thank you!
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