At Sixes and Sevens – Confusion Reigns

Did the expression ‘at sixes and sevens’ originate from English speakers who had dealings with Italians?  There does seem to be some evidence.

The expression to be ‘at sixes and sevens’ is as old as the hills, and even the likes of literary greats such as Shakespeare and Chaucer used versions of this idiom to imply that confusion reigns.

sixes or sevens?

As to the origins of this curious idiom, nobody really knows for sure, although a few theories are espoused over on the ‘at sixes and sevens’ Wikipedia entry, a link to which is provided below.

Well, I’m about to add to these theories with yet another one, and propose that interacting with Italians may have led to this curious saying.

What’s Italy got to do with this?  If you keep reading, all will be revealed.

… Continue Reading

Looking for an Italian English Reader?

Are you trying to learn Italian? If so, then there is an on-line Italian English reader service which may help you.

By using an Italian English reader, you can see the differences between English and Italian grammar, revise and develop your vocabulary, and, indirectly, raise your chances of being able to hold conversations in Italian. You will also find that you recall vocabulary and structures more easily, but you do have to read regularly.

The question is though: Can you find Italian English readers on-line? … Continue Reading

A Little Bit of Fun With Italian

Over at Bleeding Espresso, Michelle wrote a lovely little piece on Italian words which when mispronounced can raise eyebrows. I meant to do something similar one day, but she beat me to it. Well worth reading, it is:

top 5 italian words you really don’t want to mispronounce

Technorati Tags: Italian, language, funny

Did You Know?

In Italian, the word for ‘cat’ is ‘gatto’, whereas in Latin, or rather, ancient Italian, the word for ‘cat’ was ‘cattus’. This means that the English language word for ‘cat’ is closer to Latin than the modern Italian word ‘gatto’.

Curious what you come across whilst researching the differences between civil and common law legal principles, isn’t it?

A Curious Inconsistency

Don’t ask me why my odd little mind ended up considering this, but the fact remains that in Italian the word ‘giorno’ – day, is a ‘male’ word, whereas the word for week – ‘settimana’ is female.

I’m sorry, but I don’t understand why this is the case.

Italian is one of those languages, that, unlike English, defines everything as being either male or female, from a grammatical point of view. Sometimes you can guess that a word will be either female or male, other times, as in the day/week thing, there appears to be no logical explanation or consistency.

Oh well, English has its notoriously devious spelling that bears little relation to pronunciation and Italian likes to catch you out with its odd male and female nouns.

No language is perfect. And before anyone points this out, I know that German nouns defy any reasonable explanation, especially with regard to the neuter gender that is assigned to some words.

Curious, very curious.

Sayings and phrases

Being infinitely curious, as I am, I find this site eternally interesting: Sayings and Phrases. You might too.