Be sure you know what you write

Sometimes, I wonder why the editor of a prestigious paper, as The Jakarta Post is, decides to submit to its readers nonsense masked as articles written by pseudo-columnists.

In addition to the recurring articles dealing with sports written by journalists who, being wrapped in a flag, see the sport only through certain colors (see Vic Mills & Co), this paper presents now and then some articles written by columnists who really don't know what they are dealing with. I'm referring to the unsigned article When in Rome, it's best to spin a very tall tale (Oct. 24, 1997, page 7).

As an Italian and as a Roman, I cannot avoid pointing out that if somebody does not realize what is going on around him, he should avoid laying the law and scribbling pseudo-articles packed with nonsense.

Apart from the linguistic mistakes, (the word bellissima means very beautiful and not stupendously; stupenda means stupendous, not beautiful; illustra doesn't exist in Italian but we say illustre either in the masculine or in the feminine; the columnist clearly showed that he was dealing with something which is beyond him/her.

Take as a sample the word dottore (graduate). The word is usually addressed by some waiters, parking lot attendants and so on, to anyone leaving a restaurant or a parking lot. It's just a jocose way aimed at getting a good tip. It's more than clear that the article's writer didn't get the subtle and ironic meaning hidden behind the use of the word dottore.

It's more than probable that the writer, while roaming the streets of Rome, has been the target of several vaffanculo (not va fa'n cul), which does not mean "kiss my a..." as the writer thinks. It's the contracted form of the Roman idiomatic phrase Vatte a fa da 'nder culo. The meaning of this pet phrase, that for somebody it could even represent a pleasant wish, cannot be taken ad litteram since it changes according to the circumstances and to the inflection of the voice.

Dealing with the word mannaggia and its meaning, the writer has showed his/her abysmal ignorance of what was going on around him/her when in Rome. The word mannaggia is a contracted form of the archaic Italian sentence male ne aggia. Nowadays, this word has lost its original meaning. Let's say that it could be related to the Indonesian aduh (oh). What's wrong if an Indonesian lady says aduh or if an Italian one says mannaggia?

PIERO RONCI

Jakarta