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!

[delle.livejournal.com]

why did I not realize Torino=Turin?

[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?

[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.