August article of Italian School NJ for We The Italians: "Let's go sea”
"Let’s go sea”
It’s finally August!
by Giulia Casati for Italian School NJ , as seen in We The Italians
It’s finally August! Time to rest and go on vacation. This year has been a crazy mess, and probably some of you won’t be able to go on vacation, and many people won’t be able to come to Italy, so I thought I’d bring the Italian sea to you. Let’s take a look at some of the many Italian expressions with mare, “sea.”
The most common is probably un mare di – a sea of – which means “a lot of.” It can be used to describe a situation, like when it’s hot and humid out and there are tons of mosquitoes, you can say there is un mare di zanzare. You’ll often hear as essere un mare di guai – a sea of troubles – which means you are in a very difficult situation and you feel like you have no way out of it. Essere in alto mare is another one I like quite a lot. It literally means “to be in high sea” but it is used to indicate when you are far far away from your goal. Sometimes it is used also to convey that not only are you not even close to being finished with something, but also that you do not even know where to go or what to do about it, as if you don’tt have any reference point, just like when you are out in the open sea.
Another common expression with mare is a proverb: tra il dire e il fare c’è di mezzo il mare, between saying and doing, there is a sea. It is a widely used expression that indicates that saying or promising to do something and actually doing it are two very different things. It is so easy to promise to do something or say you would do it, but it takes effort and commitment to do it for real. The two are so different and apart that there is an ocean in between. Following the same logic, there is the expression promettere mari e monti – to promise seas and mountains. This expression refers to the bad habit some people have of making huge promises that they, usually, cannot keep. The mari e monti combination is actually used quite often, and not only to call types of pizzas and pastas. You can even say that you looked for something through seas and mountains – cercare per mari e monti – and you still haven’t found it.
Buttare a mare or gettare a mare, to throw something to the sea, means to renounce or give up on something in a final way. You “throw it away to the sea” and it’s gone forever, eliminated from your life. You can even use it for people, if you’d like to. Essere un mare senza fondo – to be a bottomless sea – also heard in the variation un pozzo senza fondo – a bottomless well – means that you use up an incredible amount of resources as if you never have enough which could be translated into the fact that you spend an incredible amount of money or you eat a lot. Talking about food, you could also hear mettersi in mare senza biscotti – to go out in the sea without cookies – which means that you embark on a quest without having the necessary knowledge or experience, that you just go recklessly, as if someone who leaves for a long journey out at sea without any type of food…like cookies. Best food ever, right? Then there are people who nuotano in un mare di latte – swim in a sea of milk (‘cuz you know that you got to eat your cookies with some good milk) − which means that they are pretty wealthy or happy. Or both, that actually would be great.
Then there is an expression that I personally have never heard before, but I encountered it in my research and I would try to use it as much as possible from now on: andare a scopare il mare – to go sweep the sea. It has two main meanings. It is used to say that you did something completely useless that had no chance whatsoever of succeeding, like sweeping the sea. And also, it is used as a more polite and jokingly way to tell someone to leave and get out of your way or to stop saying silly things. How great is that?
I’ll now go sweep the see. I just hope that, without promising any seas and mountains, I brought a little Italian sea to your summer.
Buone vacanze!
