jonwel

It probably is, because they got it right near the beginning of the article. But it's a bit of a mystery, I agree, with or without the "s":

World Blue Zone (English, singular)
World Blue Zones (English, plural)
Zona Blu Mondiale (Italian, singular)
Zone Blu Mondiali (Italian, plural)

None of these lead to "Blu(s) Zone Mondiali"...

EDIT: Sorry, I see that others had got their spoke in while I was writing that!

sunnysider

May be of interest:

Si può dire in italiano - Nuovo e utile | Teorie e pratiche della creatività.

jonwel

I see they mention "apartheid", which is actually Afrikaans, not English!

I've heard Italians complain about the adoption of "email" and then others defend it saying it's far shorter than the Italian "posta elettronica". But actually the English is "electronic mail" abbreviated to "email"; there's no reason why the Italians can't say "e-posta" (or "posta-e"?).
One thing that annoys me is that they think "mail" means "email" and not post in general.

Another annoyance is the use of "relax" as a noun (and pronounced rèlax)!

MarkRD

Not to mention self-còntrol ... and cattering!!

Pulaski

At some point a word adopted into English becomes an English word, surely?

I would have said that apartheid now qualifies as English, or do you want to exclude words like pyjamas, fiancé(e), and siesta as not being English either?

primularossa

I agree 1000%!!
this is because they don't think of the meaning of the word "mail".

Garbatellamike

yep

MarkRD

I think it's just a case of common sense .. why use a 'foreign' word when you have a perfectly good one already available?

Half of the time they only use the English word to 'show off' then either pronounce it incorrectly, or use it wrongly. Or both.

jonwel

Well, I think a foreign word adopted into the English language becomes an English word, but I'm not sure that it's English for a nation that re-adopts it. For example, if the Italians adopted "fiancé", having heard English-speakers use it, I think they'd still consider it a French word.
The fact is that Italians are not familiar with South African history and many don't even imagine that "apartheid" comes from another language.

PS The Italians get the stress wrong in a lot of English words, but we get it wrong in most French words (e.g. "fiancé", appunto).

MarkRD

Hmmm.. the point is also when is a word an 'English' word, and at what point does it become 'English'?!

Pizza is regularly used in English but I don't think you'd call it an 'English' word. Likewise chaise longue or strudel .. (food words seem to be the most common!)

mikelincs

Bungalow isn't English either, we adopted it from the Gujarati.

jonwel

But I think that's far deeper-rooted in the English language than "apartheid".
Interesting that the Italian meaning of "bungalow" is nearer to the original. Correct me if I'm wrong, someone, but aren't "bungalow" and "Bangalore" alternative English attempts to transcribe the place-name?

Pulaski

You think wrong.

sunnysider

At the risk of heading off into politics (well really basic human rights) jonwel, i think the word "apartheid" has been burned into the english language since the late 60s.

sunnysider

Just pray that your fellow italians steer clear of "chillax", jonwel. Someone a bit younger than me tried to explain to me why it was such a useful word. But when they defined it, it meant no more than the perfectly good word "relax".

If one was mischievous of course with the sort of italian who uses english words to try to show off, one might be inclined to try to feed them some entirely spurious words, and then watch them catch on.