American Italian

[littlebitca]

I have accepted the use of Torino during the Olympics, primarily because it is the name of the city as spoken by the inhabitants. That said, what is wrong with this sentence:

"After the break we will be returning to the Stadio Olimpico for more of the opening ceremonies"?

Are they speaking English? To an English speaking audience? Yes? Then I believe the English language has two perfectly good words to use here: Olympic and Stadium.

Comments

[chevauchee.livejournal.com]

Totally devil's advocating here -- if the proper name of the stadium is Stadio Olimpico, wouldn't that be the correct name to call it even while speaking English? I mean, the Casa Rosada (http://whatisee.org/mt/archives/entries/000405.html) is still referred to as such in English.

Where's someone who is good with usage rules like this? I really want to need to MUST know now. Paging Miss Manners, stat!

[atpolittlebit.livejournal.com]

I think for me it's more that things like the Olympic Stadium will change official names every two years nowadays to whatever language is native to the host country. Whereas the Casa Rosada is the name of the specific building. That and I have a sneaking suspicion that they're using Stadio Olimpico because they think we can figure that one out on our own and they won't get calls and emails asking where the Olympic Stadium is.

[chevauchee.livejournal.com]

That and there's also the 'oooh aaaah local flavor' of Stadio Olimpico. Betcha they won't use whatever the Mandarin is for Olympic Stadium in '08.

[atpolittlebit.livejournal.com]

Darn. I was almost looking forward to them trying and getting the accent and pitch wrong thus saying something insulting everytime they tried.

[chevauchee.livejournal.com]

You realize I totally have to ask the Chinese girl at work how to say 'olympic stadium' in Mandarin and see how badly average English speakers butcher it. I wonder if I can mangle it into 'you suck goats' or something.

[delle.livejournal.com]

why did I not realize Torino=Turin?

[atpolittlebit.livejournal.com]

Because they're saving the special segment on the Shroud for later?

[stratnav71.livejournal.com]

Perhaps it will be one of the centerpieces of the Closing Ceremony accompanied with some 80's New Wave music.

[midnightsjane.livejournal.com]

There was a piece in today's paper that said that the locals don't have any idea what tourists are talking about when they ask about the Shroud...'cause they have a different name for it!
Stadio Olimpico - I think the announcers are trying to be cool and worldly...see? I know how to say this in Italian!!
Weeee! Canada won a gold medal today!

[dherblay.livejournal.com]

I suppose you'd come back from Paris and tell your friends you'd seen the "Arch of Triumph"? (Ok, speaking of which, why do English speakers refer to "Arc de Triomphe" but not to "la Tour Eiffel"? "The Louvre Museum" but the "Musée d'Orsay"? Is post-Impressionism just that much more pretentious than art from before 1850? Ok, the answer to that one is a definite oui.)

Anyway, it's fun to break up boring old English with some randomly chosen foreign phrases. Capisce?

[atpolittlebit.livejournal.com]

Maybe it would work better if they could say it without breaking into a sudden overdone Italian accent for two words? It does make one wonder if they'll carry this over when the language of the host country isn't Latin-based.

And what makes you think I'd come back from Paris? ;-)

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

You probably saw the long discussion about Turin vs. Torino over at superplin: http://superplin.livejournal.com/302256.html?nc=71

and I guess I feel the same way about other uses of terms from other languages--that Americans need all the exposure we can get to the fact that most people speak many languages. I understand the feeling that using a phrase, pronounced correctly, from another language, is pretentious--but couldn't it maybe just be trying to defer to other people? Maybe not.