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Amazing medieval mumps

During an evening class in Italian, I gave a presentation on my research into medieval Italy. I was talking in Italian about the types of things that interest me from the period among which is medieval jewellery, especially earrings. So I kept refering to gli orecchioni and got slightly confused looks from my teacher. As it turned out gli orecchioni means 'mumps'. I should have said gli orecchini, earrings.

Sent by: TB

Comments

Giancarlo 2007-12-24

Ricchione is just a dialectical form (Romanesco) for of orecchione.

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Giulia 2006-04-29

Another derogatory term to describe a gay male is finocchio which also means 'fennel'.

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Ian O'Flynn 2006-01-09

Be careful, orecchione is also a slang derogatory term used to describe a gay person.

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Mario 2005-07-19

Part of the fun is that orecchioni sounds very much like ricchioni, a streetword for gay ...

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Franci 2007-04-20

Actually, it's ricchione rather than orecchione.

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