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Dec 29th, 2019
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Dear me - I'm sorry I asked. But what does that vulgar gesture have to do with birds?
Incidentally, there's another vulgar digital gesture which is considered criminal in Italy!
Fr. Serge
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I dated a Greek girl once and I talk with my hands. At one point she stopped me mid-gesture and told me never to do that again.
She then said that her father wouldn't tell her what it meant, but that it was offensive and would get her in trouble in Greece.
Terry
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Dear me - I'm sorry I asked. But what does that vulgar gesture have to do with birds?
Incidentally, there's another vulgar digital gesture which is considered criminal in Italy!
Fr. Serge Would that have something to do with the two front teeth and the thumb? 
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Father,
The middle finger, fully extended, while the other fingers are folded downward.
Very impolite!
Deacon Jon
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Oh, I thought Father was probably talking about the gesture that our gentlemanly Justice Antonin Scalia gave (in a cathedral!) along with an Italian phrase that is exceedingly vulgar.
Is that the gesture, Father?
Alexis
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Not being acquainted with Justice Antonin Scalia, nor having been in whatever cathedral that was, nor able to speak vulgar Italian, I really wouldn't know.
You might write a letter to the editor of Maledicta.
Fr. Serge
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Father,
How is it that you know about Maledicta (which I just had to look up), but you don't know what Italian gesture I'm talking about? LOL.
Alexis
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I'm not a frequent reader of Maledicta - but it is true that one can learn a lot about a given culture by studying taboo linguistic uses.
I was introduced to Maledicta one summer in Connemara - there were two or three grad students doing a course in Irish, and they were keenly interested in discerning what one should not say, and why not. Had the good folks in Connemara both shocked and puzzled.
Fr Serge
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Oh, I thought Father was probably talking about the gesture that our gentlemanly Justice Antonin Scalia gave (in a cathedral!) along with an Italian phrase that is exceedingly vulgar.
Is that the gesture, Father?
Alexis I hadn't heard about this. A quick check: Most of the current internet stuff is anti-Scalia. The original article seems no longer available at least for free. But the story against him doesn't add up for me, and so I question the prudence of repeating biased conclusions. The issue is what he said: a follow-up story in the Herald.
Photo: Antonin Scalia gestures inside the Cathedral of the Holy Cross. (Herald exclusive photo by Peter A. Smith) “It’s inaccurate and deceptive of him to say there was no vulgarity in the moment,” said Peter Smith, the Boston University assistant photojournalism professor who made the shot. Despite Scalia’s insistence that the Sicilian gesture was not offensive and had been incorrectly characterized by the Herald as obscene, the photographer said the newspaper “got the story right.”
[...]
Smith was working as a freelance photographer for the Boston archdiocese’s weekly newspaper at a special Mass for lawyers Sunday when a Herald reporter asked the justice how he responds to critics who might question his impartiality as a judge given his public worship. “The judge paused for a second, then looked directly into my lens and said, ‘To my critics, I say, ‘Vaffanculo,’ ” punctuating the comment by flicking his right hand out from under his chin, Smith said. The Italian phrase means “(expletive) you.”
Yesterday, Herald reporter Laurel J. Sweet agreed with Smith’s account, but said she did not hear Scalia utter the obscenity.
[...] [ outsidethebeltway.com] The photographer, Smith, heard it and "Herald reporter Laurel J. Sweet agreed with Smith’s account, but said she did not hear Scalia utter the obscenity"? What does that add up to; she agrees with Smith's account except that she cannot verify the most important fact? Have we not come full circle to find nothing at the end? Or is there more to the story?
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Catholic Gyoza Member
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Some of us speak Italian and think that maybe the Va_____lo word should have been deleted.
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I'm not a frequent reader of Maledicta - but it is true that one can learn a lot about a given culture by studying taboo linguistic uses.
I was introduced to Maledicta one summer in Connemara - there were two or three grad students doing a course in Irish, and they were keenly interested in discerning what one should not say, and why not. Had the good folks in Connemara both shocked and puzzled. In my last year of high school, in our advanced spanish class, the teacher suddenly gasped--then recovered. What the other student had just said was innocuous anywhere in latin america but Cuba--where the teacher was from. We spent the entire period discussing which words had other meanings in which country . . . (or, how to give mortal insult in all but a couple of the countries in the western hemisphere . . .)  hawk
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I rather enjoy The Insult Dictionary -- How to Snarl Back in Five Languages. Some other people must also enjoy it; I've bought it several times and each time it seems to have developed feet.
Fr. Serge
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The Insult Dictionary -- How to Snarl Back in Five Languages Father Serge: Father bless!! What a great idea for a Christmas "stocking stuffer" gift. Where can I obtain copies? BOB
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I rather enjoy The Insult Dictionary -- How to Snarl Back in Five Languages. Some other people must also enjoy it; I've bought it several times and each time it seems to have developed feet.
Fr. Serge Dear Father Serge, Somehow you enjoying that book does not surprise me! Respectfully, Alice
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The International Insult Dictionary: How to Snarl Back in Five Languages (Paperback - 1972)
3 Used & new from $2.15 Amazon reference  BOB
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