Patty

I would like to ask you all for some help - I was teaching today and we were talking about the misuse of some English words by the italians. I could only come up with the following:
slip (they use this for underpants)
box (they use this for garage or playpen)
and the worst PILE (they use this for a fleecy )

Can you think of any more obvious ones that I cant ? They were really interested and I just had a blank mind (not unusual )

indiebird

Hmmmm do you mean words they use to mean something they don't? What about mini-basket which should surely be basketball?

duffer

Camera?
Motor
Machine...
Mobile
I don't understand your question?
Are you talking about false friends? Or using the wrong word literally translating from Italian into English, i.e. make a shower/fare la doccia?

TestaRossa

I think I know what you mean but I also think slip and box are US words which they are using correctly and I just thought pile was their word for fleece, so are these incorrect?

You might be better looking for americanisms that have changed meaning once they have arrived in Italy as they will probably be different in the UK if that makes sense? Like slip.

casalottian

Un night - nightclub, footing - jogging, i big - big names.

Lorna at Vicenza

They also use 'box' instead of 'boxing' - as in the sport.

Not dead wrong but not exactly right either. I don't think an English person would say "got my box lesson tonight."

casalottian

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudo-anglicism#Italian

Faintly ridiculous:
Un camping - camp site
Un lifting - face lift
sexy shop - sex shop (obviously!), but wouldn't describe them as sexy
Un toast - toasted sandwich

Didn't realise: a baby killer is a juvenile murderer

Lorna at Vicenza

How about how they say "bloc note-ez" (block notes) when we would really just call it a notepad.

Lorna at Vicenza

Just thought of another one ....

wellness.

We don't use that do we? Fitness yes but not wellness.

indiebird

just thought of my fave: Baby Parking!!

TestaRossa

It's an American expression.

I think footing is one of the funniest! Why do they say this I wonder??

duffer

There are wellness centres in the UK. Like fancy gyms that do also a range of beauty treatments, etc.

What about BEER - they use it to describe piss, no?

Patty

Thanks alot - I now have something to tell my group tomorrow

I agree with Lorna - I had never heard wellness before coming here.
I love all the others though

and while I'm here can I ask what you think of this - my son was told it was wrong in a phone conversation to say
"Can you pass me to John please" ...........

Is it wrong - am I thinking with my italian mind - I thought it was okay but his teacher says no !

indiebird

'can you pass me to John please' sounds ok to me tbh but prob not covered in the teachers grammar book. I tend to say 'can you pass the phone over to mum' when I call home but that is cos you have to be literal or my pedantic Dad would say 'you'd be a bit heavy to pass to your mum' or somesuch comment. My son had to write what we were wearing the other evening in English and he wrote 'my mum is wearing a green jumper, some jeans and grey socks' apparently it was wrong.... he should have written 'my mum is wearing a green jumper, a pair of jeans and a pair of socks' .....left me doubting my own english when I saw she'd marked it wrong....

TestaRossa

Thing is we don't learn colloquial Italian in lessons so I suppose you shouldn't teach colloquial English to Italians. I say pass the phone, pass me over to your dad etc but I can see it isn't correct and must sound strange to a non-English speaker as it is a request that is impossible - indies dad is right if you think it thru. It should probably be "can I speak to John now please?" to make sense to them. I'm also guessing we wouldn't get away with "some" in a French or Italian class so, even though your son is British, the teacher is theoretically correct to make him say a pair I guess!!