Italian Clippings

Many languages nowadays use vast numbers of words borrowed from English, generally to the dismay of purists. Such borrowings are frequently modified in the new language, pronunciation and spelling being common aspects affected. A rather special way that Italian (and other Romance languages) modifies borrowed English terms is to ‘clip’ them, in other words to use only the first part (usually of a two‐word expression). ‘Un water’ is therefore ‘a water‐closet’, and ‘una top’ is ‘a top model’. This paper not only provides many examples – principally, but not only, from Italian – but also looks at the linguistic reasons for such clipped forms. Since this process has been going on for centuries, some interesting insights into English vocabulary of the past emerge, though there are also many recently clipped terms to be noted. Lastly, a look at one or two clipped Italian terms lent to English proves that the same thing can even happen in reverse.