# si fa presto a dire X



## Lucy12

ciao a tutti!

I am reading a newspaper article about poverty and I don't really understand the headline: "Si fa presto a dire povero" does it mean something like "One is quick to call them self poor" ? I really don't know, if any could shed some light that would be great.


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## Lello4ever

My attempt:
"It's easy to say povero"
If you give us the whole sentence we'll try to find a better translation.


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## Lucy12

That is the whole sentence, it is a headline for an article. The article is about poverty in Italy and different ways of measuring it.

So does it mean something like "people are quick to use the word poor" ?


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## spicefra

Lucy12 said:


> That is the whole sentence, it is a headline for an article. The article is about poverty in Italy and different ways of measuring it.
> 
> So does it mean something like "people are quick to use the word poor" ?


 

I think the meaning is that in Italy is becoming easier to find poor people


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## mariposa1987

I think you can translate it as: "It is  too much simple (that's to say superficial) to say that someone is really poor".


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## mateintwo

My attempts:
Literal:
One does it quickly/(too) soon to say poor

Free:
No time is wasted to say poor
or
Without a 2nd thought we say (call them) poor


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## HughW

My dictionary has the phrase "si fa presto a criticare" which it translates as "it's easy to criticize" - with the implication, I think, that the criticism may be wrong or that the situation is more complicated.

I think that there is the same idea in the newspaper headline. The article is about how difficult it is to define what 'poor' means.
(http://espresso.repubblica.it/dettaglio/Si-fa-presto-a-dire-povero/1560950)

Hugh


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## occhibelli

The complete sentence is, "Che poi si fa presto a dire vermi, ma ce ne sono mille tipi: lombrico, tremolino, coreano, . . . I get it, but somehow "People are quick to say" doesn't seem to capture the idea of over-simplification or easiness inherent to the Italian. I believe it was also in the title of a book or film, "Si fa presto a dire . . ." Suggestions anyone?


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## CPA

How about "It's easy to say", as you said?


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## AlabamaBoy

Or how about: You may think you know _worms, _but did you know...


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## GavinW

There are tons of ways of translating this journalistic cliché. Here's one that I like, for some reason: 

"Not a lot of people know this, but there are (a myriad/a thousand different types...)". 
(A' la Michael Caine, per intendersi. I'm joking. We should not still be quoting Michael Caine. We should have stopped when he started quoting himself.)
Or:
"It's a little-known fact that..." 
(A' la Peter Cook/E.L.Whisty)


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## chipulukusu

As a native, the immediate meaning that I get from the 2007 OP headline is:

"I't easy to say _poor_, but it's more difficult to explain what it means and how many different things it may mean",

along the line of Lello's #2 and AlabamaBoy's #10.

As I can see the same works for the _worms_ sentence.


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## occhibelli

Thanks everybody. I'll go with "It's easy to say."


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## occhibelli

AlabamaBoy said:


> Or how about: You may think you know _worms, _but did you know...


Nice suggestion, but the use of the second person would be confusing here. Maybe "People may think . . ."


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## AlabamaBoy

We often use the second person in an impersonal way without confusion to sound more chatty and engaging. To each his own.


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## GavinW

occhibelli said:


> Thanks everybody. I'll go with "It's easy to say."



That's a shame. It's wrong. Sorry, but there's no sense beating about the bush! The expression is much more idiomatic than that.

EDIT:
Some more (good) suggestions:

Worms are not all the same, there are a thousand different kinds...
You may think worms are all the same, but they're not; there are a thousand different kinds
With worms, it's not a case of "seen one, seen them all": there are a thousand different kinds
If you thought "a worm is a worm is a worm", think again: there are a thousand different kinds
If you thought you knew everything about worms, you've got another think coming. For a start, there are a thousand different kinds
Worms are more complicated/interesting than you thought/than most people realize...

(etc etc)


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## Paulfromitaly

Would "It's all very well to say just worms" work?


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## Passante

Scusa Gavin, ma se leggo bene http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=965780
e considerato che in italiano presto detto ha valore analogo a presto a dirsi ecc.. http://www.treccani.it/vocabolario/tag/si-fa-presto/
non vedo che ci sia di sbagliato a dire it's easy to say.
Le tue sono parafrasi appropriate, ma usando easy di sicuro si mantiene la sinteticità che gli e' propria (scusate per gli accenti, ma attualmente ho una tastiera strana). 
Per completare anche in italiano potrei dire: e' facile dire verme, ma sai quanti ce ne sono?  come sinonimo di si fa presto senza troppi danni espressivi.


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## chipulukusu

Never say _worms_, tell us _which_ worms instead! 

I'm not really serious here, but since 2007 nobody seems to have really addressed the issue of finding an equivalent of such a newspaper headline as

"Si fa presto a dire povero" or
"Si fa presto a dire vermi"...


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## Bookmom

I've been thinking about this as well, Chip. 

How about: We are quick to use the label "poor" or We are quick to label people as poor ...It's easy/expedient to brand (groups of) people as poor...


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## GavinW

chipulukusu said:


> ...since 2007 nobody seems to have really addressed the issue of finding an equivalent of such a newspaper headline as...



It's not easy! But you're right to remind everyone that it's a journalistic cliché, and that it could be used in a headline, too. In such cases, it should be matched by an equally short formula in English...

I'm not joking when I make the following suggestions (as short phrases). They are very loose translations. In fact, they're not translations at all. That's because I (still) believe the meaning of such journalistic clichés is secondary: it's the impact (and, yes, the brevity) that counts.

The worms have it: There are actually a thousand different....
It's a worm's world...
A worm's-eye view...
etc

I hope I've made the point: journalistic clichés are made to grab our attention, not say anything very meaningful. (For a start, think of all those headlines in Italian that begin with "Se...", where no condition is actually intended. And we would never translate those headlines by saying "If..."). A simple pun often achieves the same effect.

But I'm not optimistic many people will agree with me... :-(

EDIT:
Oh, and as for the OP in 2007:

There's more to being poor than meets the eye
Being "poor" covers a multitude of "sins"
The truth behind being "poor"
Today's poor: what's in a name?
A poor man's guide to poverty


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## chipulukusu

Thank you Bookmom  But, is it possible that once in a lifetime Italian has a more concise and effective idiom than English? 

I put it in the form of a challenge... 

EDIT: and thank you Gavin too, we were crossposting...  but "si fa presto a dire... " is not only a journalistic cliché in Italian, it's a widespread idiom...


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## CPA

_It's all well and good to speak about......_


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## AlabamaBoy

Gavin and CPA: excellent suggestions. Bravi.


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## GavinW

@chipu: You're right, it's not only used in journalism, of course. I was kind of conveniently forgetting that for the moment. And I think CPA's suggestion (post 23) is particularly suited to the "everyday" (mon-media) use.
@Alabama: Thanks!


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## chipulukusu

I like really much many of the option presented, like Gavin's _Today's poor: what's in a name? _and many others and CPA's _It's all well and good to speak about...... _but the fact is that very few of them are _idioms_ in the strict sense of the term, and none of them appears to me as much concise and effective as "_si fa presto a dire".

_"si fa presto a dire..." is an _idiom _in a _strict_ sense, because if I say "_si fa presto a dire povero"_ a non Italian has all the rights to say "_Of course, it's only six letter, so what? What is the big achievement here_?" just like if you say to an Italian "You are beating around the bush" he has all the rights to say "_Scusa, quale cespuglio, cosa stai dicendo?_"_

Gavin's "There's more to being poor than meets the eye" is _an idiom, but I think we can say that _si fa presto a dire _is superior for conciseness and effectiveness, and the impact of such headlines comes from _being _an idiom in the strict sense of the word (a group of words which convey _a different_/_more _meaning than they do by their literal meaning).

Is this enough to celebrate a victory?... once in a lifetime!


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## GavinW

chipulukusu said:


> Is this enough to celebrate a victory?



If you mean (as you asked earlier) a victory for Italian, for being more concise than English, then yeah, of course! In fact there are plenty of Italian idioms that are shorter than their nearest English equivalents, or indeed for which no (idiomatic, fixed) equivalent exists in English. Italian can be beautifully economical! Say it loud, say it proud. ;-)


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## chipulukusu

Yes Gavin, this is what I meant! I'm not optimistic like you are about Italian being more concise and economical than English in a significative number of situations, but thank you very much!


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## occhibelli

GavinW said:


> That's a shame. It's wrong. Sorry, but there's no sense beating about the bush! The expression is much more idiomatic than that.
> (etc etc)



Well, it's a bit severe to say "wrong" and more than a tad pedantic. I have to balance a few concerns here: the sentence is uttered by a teenager who is proud of his knowledge of bait. And it has to be consistent with the tone that I've set throughout. I ultimately went with "People may think they know worms, but . . ." And then moved on (another 300 pages to go, guys). As for the suggestion that I use, "You may think . . " In some contexts it might work, but not here, since the narrator uses the second person to speak to himself, and here he is clearly talking about other people.
Thanks for all the suggestions. I guess I opened up a real "can of worms" here!


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## CPA

Thank you for the context.


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## GavinW

CPA said:


> Thank you for the context.



Yep, only 28 posts late... Or is that a tad pedantic?

EDIT: Ops, only 21. Pedantic _and_ wrong...


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