Bergamo Street Sign Language Lesson XLVIII

previous lesson | this lesson

There are always new words and phrases to stop us in our tracks and say woah, both at home and out and about. Here we go with the 38th installment of our everyday language lesson.

 

 

Sgrassatore universale – FA BRILLARE SENZA ALONI
"Universal degreaser – shines without streaks"

Sgrassatore does mean degreaser, but in English this is more specialized term for car-related or industrial uses. Seems like we would say “cleaner for grease and dirt”. In Italian, sgrassatore is commonly used. Alone means halo but in this sense here it means not leaving streaks. This can be confirmed by going to the Chanteclair site for this product, which says “streak-free shine”.

When we first saw the word aloni, we thought it was a chemical. Duh, put an H on it to get something close to “halo”. This product also functions upside down: funziona sottosopra.

NON VIAGGAIRE SCOPERTO!
"Don’t travel exposed (Don’t travel without a ticket)"

This is a cute way to remind people to buy bus tickets and don't cheat. There are rarely any checks on buses, at least on the buses we travel on. We pay with the ATB app.

Abbattimosche – manico in ferro
"Fly-swatter – metal handle"

In a previous installment, we mentioned other words for fly swatter like acchiappamosche and schiacciamosche. See Bergamo Street Sign Language Lesson XLVI . No sooner had we written that then we saw the word abbattimosche from abbattere – to knock down, demolish and mosca/mosche - fly. Even if it is written as iron (ferro) for the handle (manico), often the words is confused with being metal (of any sort). We doubt they would use iron for this handle.

  

ABBECEDARIO
"Alphabet primer"

Boy we felt stupid when we saw this and thought it was a mishmash of letters that was made up. Then we realized, damn, it’s a word. We saw the word in the kid's area of a new museum in Bergamo: Mura di Bergamo in the Porta Sant’Agostino gate to the city.

LA STAZIONE SI RINNOVA
"The station is under renovation"

The Bergamo train station is under major renovation. This sign indicates this, but the translation given below is not great: “the station is renewing”. It suggests the station is renewing itself. A better translation is “the station is under renovation” or “the station is being renovated”.

eccetto frontisti
"Except property owners"

We were walking back to the hospital – yes, it’s easy to walk to the hospital in Bergamo – and saw this sign on Via Borgo Canale. The street starts out as a normal street running north from Bergamo toward the upper city. Most of the main traffic turns off on Via Costituzione and Borgo Canale street continues significantly narrowed and cobblestoned. This sign is at that point. To the best of our ability frontisti means anyone who has property or a business on this road can travel on it. 

ZONA ESCLUSIVA DI CACCIA CON L’ARCO AL CINGHIALE
"Exclusive Wild Boar Bow Hunting Area"

At first, when we saw this sign on a walk to Alzano Lombardo, we wondered if we should be worried about being hit with an arrow. After that though, we started wondering about the translation. It seems the best translation is a sequence of nouns “wild board”, “bow hunting”, and “area”. These noun phrases or compound nouns can seem like a mouthful but are common in English.


 

inizio cantiere – ATTENIZONE VIABILITA` MODIFICATA
"Start of construction – Watch out for modified access" (very literal translation)
"Start of construction – Attention: traffic pattern changed" (flows better)

First, we were patting ourselves on the back for finding a misspelling in a sign. ATTENIZONE should be ATTENZIONE. Okay, not a big deal, but it means our language skills are at least a step above on-life-support. 

 But how to translate the sign? We gave two options above.