Okay - this is WAY out of left field but I just have to vent. Please know as you read this, that I grew up in Italy, so I have a tiny clue about this.
Americans are CRAZY when it comes to Italian colloquialisms and conventions. They have this way of making things more complicated than they need to be. Here are my favorites: (you can lump this one in with my recent rant about the use of apostrophes...don't get me started.)
Giorgio - a man's name. Americans see this and they say, without fail Gee-Or-Gee-oh. Or even worse they say Gee-Or-jjj-ee-oh with that soft G like in "je m'appelle". Same with Giovanni. Everyone says Gee-Oh-V-ah-nee.
That's wrong.
Pay attention everyone: Giorgio = JORJO. With j's like in "JUMP". Just JORJO. That's it. The i's are silent. The g's are hard. Thank you very much. And Giovanni- it's three syllables, not four. JOE-VAH-NEE. That's it. The i's are silent. Ask your Italian friends, they'll tell you. (and by "italian friends, I don't mean Snookie, The Situation, or anyone from Cake Boss. I mean actual Italian people.)
In the same vein: Bellagio, like the hotel in Vegas and the wonderful town in the lake region of Northern Italy? That's BELL-AH-JOE. Period. End of story. The i is silent. The g is like j in jump. That's it. Easy. Stop adding syllables and weird sounds. You sound foolish.
There are many more. Let me just throw one more in there and then I will shut up.
You CAN'T say "I want a panini, please" nor can you say "I want a biscotti, please". It's WRONG. Panini and Biscotti are PLURAL. Panino means, literally, "little bread". Pane is bread. putting 'ino" on the end makes it diminutive. So, panino means roll. Biscotto is, more or less, a cognate meaning "biscuit". Can you imagine saying "I want a rolls" or "I want a biscuits"? Well, that's what you're saying. SO:
One biscotto. Two biscotti.
One panino. Two panini.
Etc.
Please make note of it.
Thanks.
