Happy Mother’s Day. We pluck this day out of the calendar to slather mothers with excessive adoration, usually ignoring the reason why we feel we have to exaggerate (the reason is simply those 364 preceding days of incessant but unthanked lion-taming that mothers perform every waking and often non-waking hour.) Looking past the holiday to the reality of your average Mom’s year, you’ll have to admit that it’s not made of flowers and chocolate and lace-trimmed cards laden with poetry. Lion taming (the lion being life, not merely the children) can become un-poetic very fast, no matter how tough your mother is.
I especially want to recognize mothers’ uncanny ability to say so much using so few words. And the truly amazing thing is that mothers say the exact same things in each of the 7,139 languages in the world. The universal language is not Esperanto. It’s Momspeak.
Any Venetian of any age will recognize the common expressions listed below — as will you — either from having said them or, as a child, having heard them. And if some of these apothegms seem unreasonably violent, just remember that she was almost always driven to it. By you. If we’re being honest.
So as you read, send a silent salute to your mother, wherever she is. And I’d love to hear from anyone who was, in fact, born in a barn.
Threats:
Vardime co te parlo. “Look at me when I’m speaking to you!”
Col vien casa to pare ghelo digo. “I’m telling your father about this when he comes home.”
Come che te go fato, te desfo! “Just like I made you, I can unmake you.” (My favorite, a sort of global, all-encompassing threat coming from the elemental source. This was one of Lino’s mother’s major standbys.)
Verzo la scatola de le tangare. “I’m opening the box that’s full of smacks upside the head.” (A tangara is a smack. This is sometimes said as a very early warning using a delicately menacing tone. Sometimes it’s enough just to say “Verzo?”)
Dai, disi calcossa! Prova parlar se ti ga coragio!!! “Come on, say something! Try to speak if you’ve got the courage!”
Ti pol pianzer in grego, tanto no te lo compro. “You can even cry in Greek, I’m still not buying it for you.”
Vara che te cambio i conotati! “Watch out, I’m going to change your face” (“conotati” are the features of your face, thus “beat you up”).
Vara che quela xè la porta. “Look, that over there is the door.” (Meaning you’re invited to depart by it.)
No sta far che vegna là to pare! “Don’t do it or your father will be coming over there.”
Vara che te meto in colegio! “Watch out, I’m going to put you in the reformatory.”
Domestic remarks:
I to amissi no ga minga na famega? “Your friends haven’t got families?”
Ti ga sentio quelo che te go dito! “Did you hear what I just said?”
Ma ti credi che mi fassa i schei de note? “You think I print money at night?”
Mi a la to età gero zà stufo de lavorar. “At your age I was already fed up with working.” (This sounds more like something a man would say to a slightly spoiled or slothful child, but I wouldn’t doubt that a mother might say the same thing.)
No sta strassinar i pìe. Also: No sta savatàr. “Don’t drag your feet.” “Savatar” is a verb created from zavata (ciabatta), or house slipper. Thus “Don’t scuff around as if you were wearing slippers.”
Te par che xe ora de rivar? “You think this is the right time to arrive?” (that is, come home). Said sarcastically when the obvious answer is “No, it’s screamingly late and I have no excuse.”
Ti vedara co no ghe sarà più la serva. “You’ll see (how things are) when you don’t have the servant (female gender) anymore.”
Cò moro mì ti mor da la fame. “When I die, you’ll die of hunger.”
Magna e tasi! “Eat and be quiet.”
Questa xè la casa de la lasagna…. Chi che no lavora no magna! “This is the house of lasagna — who doesn’t work doesn’t eat.” The point is the rhyme as much as the statement.
Ti ga proprio ciapa’ esempio dai piu’ sempi. “You’ve really taken the dumbest people as your example” (that is, of all the people you could have copied, you picked the dumbest ones).
General insults:
Bon da gnente come el pantan! “Good for nothing, like mud.”
Varda el trio paloma: dò inseminii e uno in coma! “Look at the paloma trio: two idiots and one in coma.” The point is obviously the rhyme, but hitting three victims with one invective is motherly target practice at its best. “Inseminio” (in-sem-eh-NEE-oh) is a very common, usually friendly, insult. Nothing to do with insemination, it comes by way of scimunito, meaning fool. It’s a low-voltage jibe, which one source says is used “when a person near you does something irrational based on ignorance, little knowledge or inexperience.”
Te vorìa un poca de Russia a ti. “What you need is a little bit of Russia.” This is heavy artillery. The inference is from the Second World War, meaning that you need to be seriously squared away, perhaps by intense discipline, suffering, defeat — any aspect of the appalling experience the Italian Army suffered during Operation Barbarossa (the doomed German attempt to conquer the Soviet Union that ended hideously in the depths of winter, naturally). This expression may be losing some of its power by now, as the generations pass, though its significance is still clear enough. Father Gastone Barecchia, who was priest of the church of San Sebastiano and passed away in 2016 at the age of 102, served as military chaplain in Russia from July 1941 to March 1943.
Vergognite che xè ora e tempo! “It’s about time you were ashamed.”
No ti te vergogni minga! “You’re not the least bit embarrassed.”
Varda che te tendo. “Look out, I’m watching you.”
Gò un fio solo e anca ebete! “I’ve got just one son and he’s even dimwitted.” (Pronounced EH-beh-teh.) The implication is “Not only did I have only one child” (bad), “he had to be dimwitted too” (even worse). In other words, she’s saying she got screwed twice.
14 Comments
The universality of motherhood! Even now, I am watching a quail shepherd her eleven wayward chicks around the garden.
We had a barn, but to my knowledge none of us kids was born in it. My mother would say to us kids — laterally directed to my father — that if we ever gave her an appliance as a gift, she’d disown us.
When we were older, she told us boys never ever to bring laundry home from college, and if she ever learned that our girlfriends were ironing our shirts for us, she would disown us. I was saved from slovenliness and temptation alike, by the invention of drip-dry.
Impressive mother in every respect! Two gold stars for her stricture against exploiting the girlfriends. I had a friend who had five children, one of whom told me that whenever the family was trying to organize some exit from the house and confusion was slowing everything down, would shout “Last one out the door gets the kids!”
Er…. I was born next door to the barn, in the attached farmhouse – but I still regularly got “Were you born in a barn?” whenever I didn’t close a door properly!
Lovely terms, I’ve noted some down to pass on to a friend who, with her family, is learning Italian in hope of future holidays there….
Honored to know someone who so closely belongs to the famous phrase. By the way, remind your friends that these sayings are in Venetian, not Italian. Comprehensible, up to a point, but the pronunciation is going to make things tricky. Still, many compliments on their efforts — all highly appreciated. Hope they come soon!
Absolutely love this! What a wealth of language, and funny too!
How I love your blog Erla! I had heard that a typical Venetian warning to a misbehaving child was ‘I will show you the time!’referring back to the torre dell’orologio being the last thing a criminal would see before being executed. Is that just a story for tourists?
It’s not a story just for tourists, it’s a real expression. Lino says his mother said it any number of times when he was a kid. I was limited myself to the universal sayings — this one’s pretty specific to Venice (and there are probably really specific expressions where you live, I’m guessing).
I see. I really can’t think of any except that around here it’s ‘were you born in a field?’ not a barn 🙂
Curious to know where that was. In any case, any child who is asked that question ought to reply “You’re asking me? I have no idea where we were.”
That’s in Yorkshire, England.
Sorry for my dimness, but I have to ask: What is in Yorkshire, England?
The saying: “Were you born in a field?”.
Presumably, it was for northerners in England who were not as fortunate as myself, born NEXT DOOR to the barn, the door of which was left open? A similar sense, but less comfortable natal arrangements?
Okay, thanks. Clears that up!
Yes, that’s what I meant:)