Sheela Clary

Basta: Most any Spanish or Italian speaker will likely agree with me here. There is no adequate English equivalent of ‘basta,’ which translates simply enough, as ‘enough.’ But ‘enough’ doesn’t tell you basta’s story. It’s not only ‘enough’ as in, “The test results are not enough to determine with certainty..…” or some such construction. We turn to “basta” when we’re looking to utter just one strong word, all on its own, with force and emotion. Think of a mother driving her three young children who are sitting in a tight row in the back and won’t taking one another’s juice boxes, from which they are spraying juice all over the car. The English ‘Enough!’, uttered there, with its weird spelling and unsatisfying final ‘f’ sound, feels like a weak, chinless face. It will not do. The word that really juts its strong chin out and up and contains real authority is ‘Basta!’ Also useful in the parenting vein is the verb ‘aspetta’ when it is used in the imperative, as in, giving someone an order. “Wait!” is the direct translation of ‘aspetta!’, but, IMHO, it contains none of aspetta’s force. “Aspetta, aspetta!” is an old man shaking his cane in the air, berating his grandchildren to hold up for him on the walk home. Maybe he drops the final ‘a’ so he sounds Sicilian. The added syllable somehow contains all the emotion. “Wait, wait,” just sounds like the start to a news game show. Useful in the kinder, gentler brand of family scenario is the Italian word “Ecco!” which can mean “Here!” or “Here you go,” or “Here we are!” (See, sometimes Italian can say more than we can in fewer letters.) It comes in handy in lots of circumstances, and you can accentuate your or our or their here-ness by adding a pronoun and adverb to Ecco, as in “Eccoci qua!” (Here we are here!) Atteggiamento is a stranger case. It means ‘attitude’ or ‘posture,’ but it is more flexible than those. In Jhumpa Lahiri’s bilingual Italian-English book In Other Words I found it translated as ‘relationship,’ so maybe it’s not so weird that I find atteggiamento holds a certain unusual resonance. The Italian version of ‘attitude’ feels bigger, broader, more open-armed. It implies a full-bodied approach to the world that the English doesn’t begin to capture. It doesn’t help that our word ‘attitude’ is sometimes marred by the connotations of resistance, or defiance, or rudeness, as in, “Don’t you go giving me any of your attitude, lady” which “atteggiamento” has none of. Here is a truly flexible Italian creation. Sciogliere (pronounced, approximately, “show-li-air-ay”) is an Italian verb that has far too broad a meaning to slot into any one English translation. An online dictionary lists 56 synonyms. https://sapere.virgilio.it/parole/sinonimi-e-contrari/sciogliere  It’s like the Elastigirl of Italian linguistics. It can mean loosen, let go of, untie, melt, dissolve, release, wind up or disappear. If Taylor Swift’s song “Shake it off” were to be translated into Italian, I think it would be called, “Scioglierlo.” I see ‘sciogliere’ everywhere, in very different contexts. The word in Italian for a tongue twister, for example, is “scioglilingua,” or “tongue loosener.” (Here’s an example, if you’re curious. “Sopra la panca la capra campa, sotto la panna la capra crepa.” On top of the bench the goal frolics, under the bench the goat dies.)  On the other hand I’m rereading a murder mystery by Sicilian writer Leonardo Sciascia called Ciascuno Il Suo (To Each His Own) and just came across this phrase: ‘scoglieva la fidanzamento,’ which means “she broke off the (her son’s) engagement (fidanzamento). Then there is this relevant example that I found online, composed by someone named Chiara Libera: “Così come il sole scioglie la neve….” (“Like this, as the sun melts the snow.”) See how descriptive and versatile it is? It's used for all sort of physical disintegrations and undoings, and has the added benefit of sounding gorgeous. In fact, Italians take great pains not to offend the listening ear, and will change the spelling of words to avoid ugly combinations.Or, they’ll just save their least favorite words to refer to their least favorite things. One of the unloveliest-sounding words to an Italian is “suocero/ suocera,” or “father-in-law/ mother-in-law.”