Culaccino
GUEST POST
By Erika Hoffman
When we pulled open the door of an Italian restaurant a bellhop in Chicago had recommended, I glanced at its name etched into the massive glass pane next to the door. Under the words was an illustration of a circle that seemed faded or splotchy on the bottom half. Curious, it was. Curious was I. Il Culaccino with a small il and larger letters for the following noun was the eatery’s name.
I know no Italian. It’s not something I’d readily be capable of deciphering. I figured il meant the. Yet, because I speak French, I know cul means bottom, like in cul-de-sac, and cul connotes something circular. Nonetheless, I had no clue.
When the owner sat us, I asked the translation of culaccino.
“The mark left on a table by a wineglass,” he said.
How interesting! I mentally noted how a single word can spark curiosity in someone unfamiliar with it. A solitary foreign word can describe something which would require several English words to define. I recalled Mark Twain’s advice about using the exact word when writing: “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.”
Too, I thought how seeing a unique word makes the viewer of it curious, and this curiosity evokes action. The written word should create emotion in a reader be it sad, happy, or afraid, and these evoked emotions compel a reader to continue reading. So does awakening a reader’s curiosity.
In a TV ad for Viking Cruises, the owner, Torstein Hagen, advises folks to “Be curious and then go.” It’s effective. He states that being kind, honest, and hardworking are important traits, but so is curiosity. An inquisitive explorer can travel figuratively. You learn from your armchair if you read.
People like to discover new things from literature whether they be facts about a foreign place, a historical period, or an unfamiliar modus vivendi. They also like new vocabulary! Sometimes, a foreign title will entice a browser as much as the book cover; think Pachinko!
Don’t avoid including foreign phrases or charming terms of concepts or things. They spice up your composition. Therefore, the next time you set your characters dining on amuse-bouche, displaying schadenfreude while they discuss their kin’s misfortunes or when they react gobsmacked about what they witnessed when Johnny Depp took the stand, ponder how you can employ a fantastic beast of a word to gussy up the scene. When those two doppelgangers of your imagination arise from the table en plein air, have one character note the culaccino left behind from her wineglass. She’ll exclaim: What a muck I’ve made!
Your readers will know these are two British chicks without your resorting to any exposition at all. Sometimes, Twain’s mot juste hails from across the pond or across a border, and it will add a flavorful dimension to your piece and make your reader curious to consume more.
Erika Hoffman pens inspirational nonfiction essays that appear in anthologies such as Chicken Soup for the Soul or in regional magazines like Sasee of Myrtle Beach. She’s had her advice on writing humor appear in The Writer as well as her essays on the craft published in the online Funds for Writers Magazine. She’s also crafted fictional stories that have been featured in Deadly Ink Anthologies, Tough Lit. Magazines, and Page & Spine. In toto, she’s had over 400 pieces published. Erika taught public high school for ten years and raised four children. Her degrees are from Duke University. She resides with her husband in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
