Evrika!

Thursday, 22 August, Year 5 d.Tr. | Author: Mircea Popescu

PATACH'INĂ, paţachine, s.f. 1. (Bot.) Verigar. 2. (Fam.) Epitet injurios pentru o femeie vulgară, strident îmbrăcată, cu purtări necuviincioase; epitet pentru o femeie de moravuri usoare. - Et. nec.

The etymology of this Romanian word had always been a mystery for me. It's yet another one of the ~1`500 Romanian words that mean whorei, but whence does it come from ?

porca-troia

The still above is borrowed from a relatively campy Italian film, La mazurka del barone, della santa e del fico fiorone. The two girls are referred to as putane, troie and other Italian words which mean whores. Including patacchine. Ding ding ding.ii

The setting is Bagnacavallo (which means whore), a tiny town in Emilia-Romagna. Which is convenient, because

In Romagna il termine dialettale "patàca" ha due distinti significati, indicando una bella donna (o volgarmente l'organo riproduttivo femminile) oppure un uomo stupido, sciocco, buffone o sbruffone.

In other words roughly the equivalent of the Romanian word pizda, which denotes exactly the same. Problem solved. Ave Maria.

———
  1. For instance firecracker ie petarda means whore, parachute ie parasuta means whore, string ie coarda means whore and on and on.

    Notably on this last one string-proper is coarda singular, corzi plural whereas string-whore is coarda singular, coarde plural, which circumstance yielded one very confused young man in a musical instruments shop when I asked him to put new whores on a guitar. At least I'm not quite as bad as this friend of mine who asked for sidewalk (ie, trotuar) thinking they're asking for trout. On the other hand they're not a native speaker, so I dunno...

    Getting back to the point, guess what curve means in Romanian. That's right, whores. Plural. [↩]

  2. The knock-out on the left is Sylvia Bayo aka Lucienne Camille. [↩]
Category: Zsilnic
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10 Responses

  1. Anon`s avatar
    1
    Anoninsigna de prim sositinsigna de tehnolog 
    Friday, 23 August 2013

    Te lamureste scriban mai jos bre, e dupa miros.

    Vezi sa nu fi venit aia din nordul Italiei pana aici. Zi mai bine ca ai auzit cuvantul in film si te-ai pacalit singur cu altul de-l stiai.

  2. znobud`s avatar
    2
    znobud 
    Friday, 30 August 2013

    I value the article.Really looking forward to read more.

  3. Mircea Popescu`s avatar
    3
    Mircea Popescu 
    Friday, 29 May 2020

    @Anon They definitely did come, as d'Annunzio'd.

  4. Mircea Popescu`s avatar
    4
    Mircea Popescu 
    Tuesday, 23 March 2021

    Coincidentally I've just discovered, while gathering the references for today's article, that the item here discussed actually exists in current usage within this 2011 piece. Yay!

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