Fave 3 Thursday: Italian Idiomatic Expressions with “Acqua” (Water)

[Note: Any text in Italian is followed by the English translation.]

Siamo giunti a novembre, e qui a San Diego, speriamo siano vere le voci che girano, a proposito di un autunno e un inverno piovosi, grazie all’effetto meteorologico conosciuto come El Niño. Lo scorso weekend, in occasione della Festa di Halloween e il Giorno dei Morti, l’acqua è arrivata con un tempismo perfetto. Non era poi così tanta, ma era la prima volta dopo mesi.

We have arrived at November, and here in San Diego, we hope that the rumors going around, regarding a rainy fall and winter, thanks to the weather phenomenon known as El Niño, are true. This past weekend, on occasion of Halloween and Day of the Dead, the water arrived with perfect timing. It wasn’t really so much rain, but it was the first time in months.

Nel sud della California piove solitamente tra novembre e marzo, forse un po’ ad aprile. Da lì e fino a metà ottobre più niente, se escludiamo una leggera pioggerella ogni morte di Papa. Negli ultimi anni la situazione si è aggravata, fenomeno che ha creato una severa condizione di siccità, oltre a numerose preoccupazioni per l’aumento di potenziali incendi”. Alcuni giorni fa, un amico musicista, mi ha raccontato come in un recente concerto avesse suonato canzoni con temi legati alla pioggia, nella speranza che la stagione autunnale ne avesse portata di nuova.

In southern California it usually rains between November and March, maybe a bit in April. From there to the end of October, nothing, not counting a light sprinkling every blue moon. In recent years, the situation has worsened, a phenomenon that has created a severe drought, in addition to great concern over the increased chance of wildfires. A few days ago, a musician friend of mine told me about a recent concert where he’d played songs with rain themes, in the hopes that this fall season would bring some more of it.

Oggi, lo spirito della pioggia mi ha ispirato nella scrittura dell’articolo di questa settimana! Ecco tre bellissime espressioni idiomatiche che invocano un elemento così prezioso e fondamentale al nostro benessere.

Today, the spirit of rain inspired me in writing this week’s article! Here are three great idiomatic expressions invoking that very precious element, so fundamental to our well-being.

Nº 1 –Sposa bagnata, sposa fortunata–

This literally translates as “Wet bride, lucky bride”. This what people say to console a woman if her wedding day is a rainy one.

Nº 2 –Acqua in bocca–

This literally translates as “Water in mouth”, and is the Italian equivalent of the English expression “Mum’s the word”. It’s what you say when you want to tell someone to keep a secret. To get this expression, it helps to picture someone holding water in their mouth — pretty hard to spill the beans or even speak at all if you have a mouth full of water!

Nº 3 –Piove sul bagnato.–

This literally translates as “It rains on the wet guy,” and is similar to the expression “adding insult to injury”. The person who is already having a tough time of it (already wet), now also gets rained on, adding insult to injury.

Bonus!  Here’s a short video I shot of the rain last March in Italy. We had just arrived at Tenuta Vannulo to tour the grounds of this buffalo mozzarella factory, when it started to “piovere a catenelle” / rain cats and dogs.  We are on the bus waiting for it to let up.

What do you think of rain?  Write to me… I love reading your comments!