Explaining Ciccio

This evening I'm going to write in English... Hoping this will be clear enough, I will go through a topic that has become very sensitive in the last weeks: I need to explain to the non-italian speaking people, when the use of Ciccio is valid and my personal approach to it...

Well, let's start saying that Ciccio is for men, Ciccia for women. Cicciolino is a kind of small Ciccio, Cicciolina could be a small Ciccia, but is also a well known porn-actress... For this reason, I try to avoid the use of Cicciolina, and consequent misunderstandings... But what does Ciccio/a means? Well, generally, if written with the capital C, should be a name, better saying a nickname. It is used between people that know each other since time and have a certain level of confidence... Generally is used for names like Francesco (Ciccio) or Francesca (Ciccia), but I heard people whose name was Emanuela, Annalisa and more, being Ciccia for all their lives...

Ciccione...

It is also possible that ciccia is written with the small c. In that case, we are talking about those nice "fat belts" also called belly... Of course I would not expect to say to anybody "Ciao ciccia!"... It would be not nice and also not understood... I could say to someone: "Ciao ciccione!" or "Ciao cicciona!", but only in the case the person looked like one of those big americans... And also in that case, I don't think I could ever be so nasty... So, basically, whenever I say "Ciao Ciccio!" or "Ciao Ciccia!" I am using the capital C!


The abuse of Ciccia and Ciccio as to the number of people I name that way, could confuse a bit... But this comes from the fact that when people are relevant for me, their name switches to the best sounding nickname... So here we have Ciccio, Ciccia, Ciccigno, Cickigna, Ciccina, Ciccisito, Ciccetta and I could keep on for some time...


Dear All Together Cicci, I wish to everybody to find many other Ciccio and Ciccia, and even if they will be a bit "ciccioni", I'm sure we'll use always the capital C...

New Languages...

I will study German next year... I promised that I will do this and I rarely promise anything... New languages mean just new words to say the same or new things to say?

I don't know: in my case it would be a disaster if I started saying more things than now and in a different way. Already I can hardly stand myself speaking so much, and I don't want to imagine the effect of a long conversation in German... If I really could express concepts without stopping every three seconds, I'm sure first of all I would say to the Germans that their language I will never learn properly as there's no music inside... Then, I would start trying singing Volare auf Deutsch loosing the most of my friends, both as I sing like a bell and also as in German Volare will sound like Fliegen, and no music can really adapt!

But if I could avoid the disaster of the music, I could have a lot of benefits from speaking German in common life. First of all, at the supermarket I could start buying no more like a Neanderthal man indicating by finger meat and other fresh foods: the improvement would be avoiding the unexpected contractions of my face in infinite shapes to try to get something that I like and not just get what THEY understood. Then I could finally understand, among the continuos stream of words of the collegues, if we have to run in a direction since there's a fire or they're just indicating to someone where is the toilette, with the possible consequence of a smelly place but fresh or a smelly place very warm...

Definitely, I want to learn German, but I need help and motivation: maybe a gun in between my shoulders will make the trick! :-)

In the Train...

Another story in the train... At the station I've met one of the fellows of my German School adventure... I promised I would have written something in English to show the blog... So...

We were talking about travels, Switzerland, reasons to come and so on... The typical commuter conversations that I like as they normally make it possible to understand a bit more of other people even in a few minutes... I discovered that the Italian tradition of life with parents for long time is well known also abroad... With surprised eyes, the Kollegin asked how was it possible not to go out of parent's home when the university started...

Well, now that I think better about this, a satisfying explanation is not easy to find: for sure there are some mitigating motivations. Finding a flat in Naples, finding a Job in Naples, not earning money and so on are acceptable excuses, but really they don't justify the phenomenon... I think that a the end we (Italians) are strange people: we like a lot living with all the advantages of being at home, and at the same time we like the idea of complaining as it is impossible to start our own life... After 14 months, I say that for everything, also in the South of Italy, the right moment comes: when I left it was really the best moment and I cannot regret. But maybe for other people the right moment didn't come or they could not see it...

I wish to them and to me, to be ready for the next right moment!

English Readers...

For possible English (or Canadian) readers of this Blog, welcome on this train going in the wilde world of the web...

Many people everyday are commuters of these coaches...

You can try to step in to take a look...

The Conductor...