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.