Giorgia Meloni will be the President, la Crusca: “It’s not wrong”

D.to the day of the victory of the right in the political elections on 25 September, the controversies are on the agenda. The last in order of time is the one that broke out due to the decision by premier Giorgia Meloni to use in its official communications in front of “President” the masculine article, rather than the feminine one.

Giorgia Meloni will be “the” President and not “the” President

Waiting, therefore, to judge the first political measures adopted by the new government, to hold the bench instead a gender issue. G.linguistic enere.

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The controversy breaks out

The fact is that the masculine article “the”, instead of “the”, in front of the President, is not really liked. To fuel the discussion, among many, the deputy of the Democratic Party Laura Boldrini than on Twitter launched his provocation.

The first woman at Palazzo Chigi who, however, calls herself the president»The exponent dem writes on the social network. “What prevents you from claiming her primacy in language as well?” continues «Treccani tells us that all roles must be declined. Or perhaps affirming the feminine is asking too much of the leader of the Brothers of Italy who already forgets the Sisters in their name? ».

Who agrees and who does not with Giorgia Meloni

The post sparked a barrage of comments: what if someone jokes about it («she is the first fluid prime minister, but she doesn’t know it»), Many speak on the merits:” How can we think that gender equality and what follows from it will be addressed, if we can’t even use a feminine definite article? “.

Many others, however, point out to Boldrini that perhaps it would be better than that the opposition concentrated on quite other issues to effectively counter the center-right. With the objection of someone who, however, affirms that “words are important” of Morettian memory and that “they also serve to define the world“.

The writer Michela Murgiawhich makes it more a matter of Italian grammar to be respected, as does the essayist and academic Tommaso Montanari who with a tweet declares: «Would you say, of a woman,“ the alternate ”,“ the competitor ”,“ the applicant ”,“ the teacher ”…? If you do it for “president” it is only for ideological reasons: because power, here, is still and only male“.

The Accademia della Crusca: the feminine is not an obligation, it is a choice

An authoritative voice, however, interrupts the flow of controversy: the president of the Crusca, Claudio Marazziniwho underlined how the question is actually much more cultural than grammatical. From a linguistic point of view, in fact, theAccademia della Crusca has pointed out several times, that both forms are correct. And no linguist could claim that either is wrong or improper.

Furthermore, Marazzini also specifies that it is not an obligation. The Italian language does not prohibit the use of the masculine to refer to positions held by women. “Those who prefer traditional masculine forms still have the right to do so“. It is therefore a preference and not a grammatical error, continued Marazzini, concluding that “those who use these women accept a historical process that is now well underway“. While the choice of those who use the masculine can be “dictated by membership to a different generation, or by a conscious ideological choice“.

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