Dear readers,
Maybe a lot of you noticed that my blog name changed. It is not something really drastic or dramatic. The name I picked for my blog, SignoreFandi, had been through a long consideration and contemplation, as a result of of my admiration to Andrea Bocelli, then later continued in joining Italian course. But recently, Mario, a reader from Italy e-mailed me telling that it might be a mistake.
Signore, if followed by a name, is supposed to be written Signor, since Signore is used to address a man.I was shocked, that EVERYTHING, from e-mail address to Twitter to Instagram, uses SignoreFandi as username.
So, I headed to my Italian teacher at Instituto Italiano di Cultura in Jakarta to explain more. And this is his explanation.
The difference between Signor and Signore, whch both referring to salutation "Mr." in English, is just about a matter of stylistic.
Both of them refer to the same meaning, addressing masculine singular person. However, Signor is considered more "aulico" or ancient, and widely used in middle-age literature. It can be known from the disappearance of the vocal "e" as found in Latin language.
Signore, in the other hand, is the latest evolution of the word, and has been used since 1800s, by adding a vocal after last consonant.
For example, a lot of Southern Italian say "andare" (to go) as "andar". The bottom line is, there's no grammatical mistake in SignoreFandi. Signore is also be used before profession, as in professore and dottore, e.g. in writing formal letter and correspondence.
So, what should I do?
First, I checked GoDaddy, Twitter, and Instagram to see if SignorFandi is available in all of them. And YES. It was available. I know it's not necessary to make change, since there's no grammatical mistake, but you know, the more ancient, the shorter, the better. So I did change all of them. The rest, like e-mail and other insignificant social media accounts, will follow. If the user name is still available, then I will change them as well.
This is one of the benefit (and disadvantage) of learning foreign language. You'll keep making mistake or getting confused (in this case, mere caused by a single vocal letter). It could be fatal, or it turned out to be enriching your knowledge of that language and its history. Language has been mesmerising me, that I learn a lot of them. It evolves, changes, evolutes, and grows as much as the humanity. It's not like cycling or swimming, that once you master it, you can not forget. Language, in the other hand, is something you always have to work on. You have to keep using it to avoid forgetting it, and as aforementioned, it grows as mush as you grow.
SignorFandi, grazie mille, Mario! You make me learn more!