Word: italian
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...century A.D., the Emperor Trajan startled Rome's housewives by introducing the revolutionary idea of the covered market. It seemed the last word in shopping, and for the next 18 centuries it was the last word-in Italy. Every weekday morning for those 1,800-odd years, the Italian housewife (or her maid) set out on the same ritualistic, time-consuming round...
Most shoppers and most shopkeepers still hew to this ancient system, but a rapidly increasing number of Italian housewives have allowed themselves to be liberated. The liberator: the American-style supermarket...
Today Milan and Rome between them boast eight supermarkets. Biggest operators: the Italian-owned Supermercato S.p.A., and the fast-growing Supermarkets Italiani (majority owner: Nelson Rockefeller's International Basic Economy Co.). Up to 10,000 customers a day in the two cities revel in the choice of up to 1,800 separate items ranging from insecticide to canned swallow's nests, from canned Malayan pineapples to frozen pizzas and spaghetti in plastic bags. Increasingly, middle-class housewives leave their maids at home (thus ending the maids' expected rake-off on the week's shopping money), personally...
Better than Brynner. For the ordinary Italian family the supermarket still has drawbacks. Unlike the small shops, the supermarkets do not give credit or make home deliveries. Most Italian housewives cannot afford imported foods, cannot take home much food on a motor scooter, and do not have a refrigerator to store the food at home. Nonetheless, shopkeepers located near supermarkets complain that their business is down a third. Even Communist housewives have ignored the Red complaint that "Rockefeller is strangling the food merchants...
...thirds afloat. No smalltime bey-decker, His Highness Sir Abdullah as Salim as Sabah quickly offered the ferryboat captain $16 to unload the latecomer and make room for the royal limousine. The Milanese tourist in the Fiat bid $32 to preserve the status quo. The Sheik bid $160. The Italian raised him $160, promised the captain $320. Chips cascading from his shoulders, Abdullah said $1,600. But the ferryman thought that was not a fair sheik, refused to switch cars at any price. His Highness' motorcar had to queue, wait...