Beppe Grillo's Blog

Nonsense talk

Tognazzi and the nonsense talk with the urban police officer
(01:43)

Political language has lost content, but in return it has acquired a new fabulous incomprehensible form of its own. If you don’t understand, it’s you who feels ignorant, not the one who has just uttered the supercazzola {nonsense words}. But what is a supercazzola? How do you recognise it?
The definition of supercazzola: “A word made up of two elements in the Italian language: the prefix ‘super’ and the noun ‘cazzo’ {prick}. The fundamental linguistic structure on which it is based is that of the ‘fruit-salad’ word, in which there is a combination of different terms or parts of different terms with the creation of a semantic confusion.”
For example: famous supercazzola from Tognazzi/Mascetti in "My Friends":
Man: “Excuse me, are you …. ?”
Mascetti: “Antani, as though there were Antani, even for the director,’ la supercazzola con scappellamento’ [the nonsense with revelation].”
The supercazzola has to be pronounced with a solemn face and with the words well articulated, In that way it gains value. It’s possible to say it anywhere: on a stage, in a conference, on TV, in the newspapers. However it has to be interpreted for common citizens and in fact the journalists have the task of raising it up as a parable, the peak of thought. Basically, to lick arse.
Some of the supercazzola of the day:
Dario Franceschini: “The home that is owned … no longer objective value because it presumes the non-mobility” ”I would like 50 thousand young people from the North to move each year to the South and vice versa”
Ignazio La Russa:
”It makes me sad that a house that in the wish of the person who left it as an inheritance and had to be destined for the cause, is then lived in by a person that has nothing to do with that cause”
Nicola Vendola:
”I’m inviting Grillo not to mistake the anxiety of change with the aesthetics of blasphemy”
“The wise contemplation of the capacity to lose well (by the Left, - editor)”
”We have to work in the territory and be cosmopolitan.”
Umberto Veronesi:
”If today the nuclear option is frightening, it’s a political error. Fermi invented the battery, not an atomic bomb … war can happen, the government of the USA created the bomb and it was the head of the American army, in total autonomy (?) who decided to unleash it on an unarmed city.”
Uolter Veltroni:
”This country is dominated by the past, that is clutching our legs, and it is stopping us from running towards the future”. “A country without values is a shell of spirits that have substantially finished, a world of sad passions, a competition without rules”.
Have you got nothing to say? Say it with a ‘supercazzola’, it always works.

Comments

Thank you for showing the definition of supercazzola. I've been lurking into this linguistic phenomenon for a while as I find it very interesting.
Robert Morrison, it's rather weird that Italians are mostly illiterate by the way, thank you for the statistics, I also had no idea about that fact. I guess low readership and illiteracy are pretty much interdependent factors.

Posted by: Edward Young | April 24, 2012 10:48 AM

Dear Louis,

Statistically, according to recent University studies, about three quarters of the Italian population over 18 years of age is illiterate or semi literate. Most have trouble reading and understanding forms and documents. A good percentage can’t speak Italian correctly. The majority only use, and are familiar with, approximately 20% of words in the Italian language. Italy has also one of lowest levels of readership (books, magazines etc) of all the G20 countries. Is it any wonder that they don't criticise “Italian politic speak”, at worst they created it.

"le veline" are their journalists, Emilio Fede their in depth political analyst and their prejudices and self serving attitudes their book of knowledge.

They are just an ill informed, ignorant yet arrogant rabble.

Posted by: Robert Morrison | October 25, 2010 02:29 PM

Dear Louis,

"le veline" are their journalists, Emilio Fede their in depth political analyst and their prejudices and self serving attitudes their book of knowledge.

They are just an ill informed, ignorant yet arrogant rabble.

Posted by: Robert Morrison | October 25, 2010 02:28 PM

"S U P E R C A Z Z O L A" I almost forgot to say it.

Posted by: Louis Pacella | October 25, 2010 03:59 AM

Media and politicians talk about "Lodo Alfano," "la facciamo retroattiva, no, non la facciamo retroattiva" "leggitimo impedimento," and other terms that probably most Italians have only a slight idea about their meaning. It's not their fault. If "lodo" means legge, why are they calling it "lodo?" The first time I heard "lodo" I thought it meant praise. Or let us praise Alfano. Perhaps a glossary is needed for the Orwellian language spoken by Italian politicians. Their tangled verbosity is something to behold. They don't understand that if Italians don't understand them it's their fault and not the people's. Shouldn't well educated persons speak and be understood by everybody. And Italian politicians are well educated persons, or not?

Posted by: Louis Pacella | October 25, 2010 03:54 AM