THEand words of love are important. We have already told ourselves that in Italian there is no word to define the man who really likes women (a category currently affected by a strong social stigma).
I find womanizer a horrible word, compared to the Sicilian fimminaroin English “womanizer”, in Spanish “mujerero”, in French “hommes à femmes” or “coureur de jupe”; but perhaps it is only because we love to say in a foreign language what we dare not say in our own language.
I find the expression “having sex” horrifying.translation from English “make sex”; it is incomparably more beautiful to “make love”. In the same way, I find the expression “dating” unbearably reductive to indicate a love story that is not crazy but not even occasional. So, dating a man or a woman like you frequent a bar.
Aldo Cazzullo (photo by Carlo Furgeri Gilbert).
The definition of “lover” is very dated and outdated; much better loved, or loved. The very word “companion” or “companion”, which once had a political connotation and now usually indicates the partner or partner with whom one is not married, is not linguistically very happy.
I remember an important painter, Aldo Mondinowho I met thanks to Lucio Dalla, his collector. At his side was a young woman to whom he was not married, and he introduced her by saying: “My great love.” Names are consequences of things, warned scholasticism, the philosophy on which Umberto Eco built his masterpiece, The name of the rose.
Using the right words to express love means respecting it. Judging others is always unfair: let he who is without sin cast the first stone; with these words Jesus saved the life of the adulteress. But speaking well is the best way to start loving well. Romance languages help: the English say “I love” to say both I love you and I love you; Catullus already distinguished between “loving” and “bene velle”.
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All articles by Aldo Cazzullo.
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