Saturday, August 11, 2012

Centro storico di Castellammare by night




The centro storico, the area within the old walls of the town makes for great night photos, especially since it's streets are so narrow that motor traffic is prohibited. This makes for pleasant walks that are safe and also very quiet. Italy is a very loud country. Everyone talks loud and the scooters with their noisy mufflers are everywhere. It is of anthropological interest that there's no word in Italian for privacy so the English one is used. There's no Italian word for stress either, for obvious reasons, so once again the English word is used and conjugated into the myriad of Italian verb tenses. An Italian would say: ho bisogno d'un poco di privacy , I need some privacy. for the verb stressare  here goes: sono molto stressato [present perfect] or ieri ero molto stressato [past perfect]. or non sapevo che questa faccenda mi stressasi cosi". [imperfect subjuntive] or ah, se non mi fossi stressato [past perfect subjunctive] or mi  sarei astressato molto [ past conditional].  These are all conjugated in the masculine gender because I am a male chauvinist, but they must also be conjugated with the feminine if the thought requires it.  There are many more tenses of course. English grammar is really a piece of cake compared to Italian. It is of note that the French would rather die than use foreign words. The result is a language poor in words and expression that is bound to wither away.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Fall splendor