Avviso trigger (trigger warning): This lesson is all about parolacce, or Italian curses. (In other words, the class my students have asked for—and I’ve tried to avoid—for the past 20 years.) Some of you who grew up with Italian relatives might be shocked to find certain words expressed here in writing, so fair warning. Italians are much more colorful in their curses than we are, and even the most vile words contain much less real threat than their American counterparts, in my experience. In Italy, you’re quite likely to have outrageous things hurled at you and everyone around you, as a matter of course. Well, I say, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.
First, let’s recap. In my first lesson, back in October 2021, I left you with “culone,” which, though it rolls satisfyingly off the tongue like most other Italian words, is really not nice. It means fat ass, and a big-eyed little boy mouthing off at his mom taught it to me.
(It’s not nice, but it is an excellent example of an Italian augmentative, which leads into today’s lesson on diminutives and augmentatives. A diminutive makes something smaller, an augmentative makes it bigger. The word “fettucine” is actually a noun plus a diminutive suffix: fettuce + ine. Fettuce = ribbons, and –ino/-ina/-ini/-ine = little. Fettucine = little ribbons. “Culone” is a noun plus an augmentative: culo + one. Culo = butt, and –one = big. Culone = big butt.
Here’s another fun suffix. When you add “-accio” or “-accia” to the end of a noun, it turns that noun into a bad thing. So, la carta = paper, and la cartaccia = waste paper. La parola = word. La parolaccia = naughty word. Apparently there is no opposite suffix meaning “good,” which seems a shame. I think I will make up my own: figlio = son, so … how about ‘fligliccio’ = good son.)
But back to the reason we’re here today: parolacce (plural of parolaccia).
Parolaccia #1: Cazzo
I traveled to Italy last summer with my family of five. (Aside: Please do not try this yourself. If you must travel with teenagers, do it off-season. Nah, scratch that, too. Leave them home.) On more than one withering afternoon, documenting Italian curses was the only activity that could be counted on to enliven my 15-year-old daughter. Despite knowing almost no Italian, it took her just a few minutes of listening in to street conversation to ascertain that “cazzo” is the Italian parolaccia of choice.
I’m thinking here specifically of the sweltering day my family made our way—my husband and I and our son meandering good-naturedly in front, the two teenage girls in a sullen forced march behind—through the back streets of Florence’s San Frediano district. On the corner ahead were two men. One lounged on a vespa and the other stood yelling in his face, the fingers of his right hand joined to the thumb and brought in and out in front of his chin, a gesture whose Italian translation precisely matches the words he was yelling: “Ma che cazzo dici mai?” (Rough translation: “What the f*ck are you always going on about?”)
Suddenly, brushing up against my left side was my firstborn, achieving a proximity to my body that she’d not voluntarily allowed in three years.
“Hey, Mom. What’s ‘cazzo’ mean, and then what did he say after that?” she asked, thumbs ready to record my responses in the notes app on her phone.
Delightedly surprised to not only be spoken to directly, but to also be the source of desired information, I gushed, “Wow, honey! You’re really paying attention! Ok, so, ‘Che cazzo’ is the Italian version of ‘What the f*ck'”
Awwww. Our first moment of vacation bonding … over the Italian penis.
(Another aside: During the first months of our study abroad semester in Milan in the winter of 1993, my fellow American student Joel was invited to a formal dinner party by his elderly neighbor. Eager to participate in conversation with the old women gathered around the table, he stated, “Ho sentito che gli Italiani hanno una passione per cazzo.” Translation: “I’ve heard that Italians are really crazy about penises.” What he’d meant to say was “calcio,” which means “soccer.”)
Parolaccia #2: Stronzo
Italian is such a musical language, and I find “stronzo” to be a decidedly unmusical word. But seeing as how it’s definitely in the top five of any self-respecting Italian’s curse arsenal, I feel I’d be remiss not to address it here. (Aside #3: Viewers of the second season of HBO’s “The White Lotus,” set on Sicily, will, if they listen closely enough, hear lots of cazzos and stronzos. You could consider the show the audiovisual component of this lesson.)
“Stronzo,” as Urban Dictionary puts it, is someone who’s halfway between an asshole and a bastard. It literally means “turd,” but, in typical fashion, is used much more creatively and with greater grammatical latitude, than our “turd.”
You can use it as a noun: “Sei proprio stronzo.” (“You’re such a jerk.”)
You can use it as an adjective: “Perchè sei così stronzo?” (“Why are you so asshole-y?”)
You can add “-ata” to the end of it and make “stronzata,” as in, “Hai fatto una stronzata.” (“You did a shitty thing.”) In other words, in Italian, even turds can be linguistic building blocks.
Parolaccia #3: Minchia/minghia
This is my favorite curse, but you’re not likely to overhear it on the streets of Florence. For that, you should do like Tanya from “White Lotus” and go to Palermo instead. Many of my students over the years, when I ask them to brainstorm all of the Italian words and phrases they know, can recall just a handful of resonant words from their childhoods, which are invariably curses uttered by their grandparents in Southern Italian and Sicilian dialects.
This entry falls among these. I learned the real meaning of this word once I’d heard it employed by a well-coiffed Sicilian bus driver who had made the mistake of trying to lift off the sidewalk the mammoth suitcase that held a year’s worth of my belongings.
“Minchia.”
Minchia is, according to a list generated by Prestelli Sicily Tours, “the first word that you hear, arriving in Sicily, and the last word that you hear when leaving.” Similar to “cazzo” in that it refers to the male genital organ, you should by now not be surprised to hear that it can serve as a stand-in term expressing, “gratitude, joy, anger, worry, fear, contentment, wonder.”
I suppose it’s the closest Italian equivalent to our ubiquitous “F” word, but burdened with none of that word’s menace. Here’s a sweet example from the 1991 film “Mediterraneo.”
Parolaccia #4: Figlio di puttana
Yuck. This one is so offensive I find myself cringing to write it. It feels viscerally more significant than the English version, which is “son of a bitch.” I will only note that “puttanesca” pasta sauce derives from “puttana,” which means “whore,” and I will leave it to others to suss out the murky origin story.
Parolaccia #5: Merda
This one is not nearly as well-circulated as our own beloved “shit.” In fact, I’m straining to recall any real-world Italian scenario in which I was inspired to say “merda.”
Ah, yes, just remembered one. I was once trying to cross a street in Naples, at a red light, no less, and a guy on a vespa zoomed out of nowhere, laid on the horn, filled the airs with parolacce, and left me to catapult myself backwards to avoid getting flattened. In that moment, sprawled on the sidewalk, I discovered my inner Napolitana, made a right angle with my left arm, crossed my right arm over it, and screamed in his direction, “Pezzo di merda! Ma vaffanculo! Minchia!”
Oops, that reminds me. I forgot …
Parolaccia #6: Vaffanculo
This word is actually five words in one, children. Va + a + fare + in + culo. Go + to do + in + ass. In English, well, you know. No need to get graphic. This one competes with “cazzo” for popularity. I like to think of it as the Italian-Italian, as opposed to the Italian-American, version of “Fuhgeddaboudit.”
Parolaccia #7: Coglioni
Much more popular than Italian poop are Italian testicles. The term “coglioni,” like the other anatomical referents listed above, is used freely and with great enthusiasm in a wide variety of circumstances by Italians, especially men, for obvious reasons. On its own, its meaning is similar to “stronzo,” but I’ve most often heard it paired with, or joined to, the verb “rompere,” which means “to break.”
Here’s a classic familial use of the phrase:
Mother of teenager: “Pulisci la stanza.” “Mettiti una giacca.” “Apparecchia la tavola, per favore.” (“Clean your room.” “Wear a jacket.” “Please set the table.”)
Teenager: “Perché mi rompe sempre i coglioni?” or, more concisely, “Perché tu sei sempre un rompicoglioni?” (“Why are you always breaking my balls?” / “… giving me a hard time?” / “… such a pain in the ass?” / “… such a ball-breaker?”)
Parolaccia #8: Li mortacci (tua)
Another of my favorite film references: If you close your eyes and listen carefully to Roberto Benigni playing a lunatic cab driver in this hilarious 20-minute clip from the Jim Jarmusch classic “Night On Earth,” you’ll hear the very satisfying word “mortacci” used with particular force and excellent timing.
Morte = death and morto = dead, and ‘li mortacci tua’ insults your dead ancestors. It’s a central Italian thing, but more generally known, from movies like the one mentioned above. (Benigni is from Tuscany.)
Finally, what I always found to be the mildest curse …
Parolaccia #9: Porca Miseria, or Porca Madonna
“Porca” means “pig,” but “pig misery” and “pig Mother Mary” are not good translations for these. Unlike any English word ending in “-tion” or “-sion,” it seems that curses simply do not lend themselves to easy Italian-English, English-Italian transference. The best equivalent to this none would be, something like “Dammit!” or “Holy crap!” maybe. Benigni throws these out in “Night On Earth,” as well.
Minchia! Look at the time. Porca Madonna, I’m exhausted. I imagine some of you might have additions and corrections, yes? Feel free to rompicoglioni and tell me where I’ve gone wrong.
