Minister of Culture Gennaro Sangiuliano said using foreign words in the Italian language was ‘radical chic snobbery’. The irony seems to have been lost on him.
The Local – Italy’s Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano is being slammed for criticising the use of foreign (English) words in Italian – and using foreign words when doing so.
The right-wing politician said: “I believe that a certain abuse of English-speaking terms is a part of a certain snobbery, very ‘radical chic’, that comes from the lack of awareness of the global value of Italian culture”.
In Italian, Sangiuliano used the expression “snobismo, molto radical chic”. Chic, of course, is a French word.
Snobismo is derived from the English word ‘snob’, and translates rougly as ‘snobbery’. The phrase ‘radical chic’, which was coined in 1970s America to describe fashionably left-wing political views, is rarely used by native English speakers today, but is widely used in Italy.
