Word: italianizer
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...gives new resonance to the phrase "pouring money down a hole." Yes, that's less than a 10th of the water that the Neptune Pool at Hearst Castle holds, and we opted for vinyl and stamped concrete instead of Hearst's glass tile infused with gold and 17th century Italian bas-reliefs. Still, throw in a fence, a heater, a motorized cover and a filter pump that runs 24/7, and I've spent tens of thousands of dollars to surround myself with water, no different from the guy who buys a yacht and names it Liquid Assets. Is that...
...Rasumussen was not alone in exiting the race Wednesday night, however: the entire Cofidis team pulled out after acknowledging one of its riders, Italian Cristian Moreni, had tested positive for testosterone...
...Travolta hasn't sung in a musical in nearly 30 years, but he was practically born to the form. In the New York City suburb of Englewood, N.J., his Italian father Salvatore owned a tire shop, but his Irish mother Helen ran what John, the youngest of six, calls "the family business": show business. Mom directed local theater works; the other kids acted or studied music. John worked at becoming an actor-dancer-singer, and at 17 he almost won the title role in the Broadway Jesus Christ Superstar. The part he did get that year was in a summer...
Some effin' good news for Tony Soprano from the Italian Supreme Court. The fictional Italian-American mobster, and millions of law-abiding real folk in the old country, can now feel more free (not that Tony ever held back) to use the Italian "V" word that - more or less - corresponds with the English "F" word. Italy's top court ruled on Tuesday that "though representative of obscene concepts [and] of a sexual nature," that world-renowned 10-letter word is merely a "vulgar manifestation of irritation." The ruling overturned a verbal abuse conviction of a 60-year-old local politician...
Before exploring the reverberations of the verdict - and since we know we can get away with it on an American website, even without the Court's ruling - it is worth being a bit more precise: the Italian word in question is vaffanculo. Unlike the Italian high court, though, we will not deconstruct the exact significance of what is affectionately abbreviated as "vaffa" when the irritation is a bit less extreme. It is an expression that has survived in one dialect form or another down generations of Italy's millions of emigrants around the world (it is known by its Sicilian...