The Little Choo-Choo
that Needed a Dictionary
Boy, is my face
red. Or at least that part of my head encased above and
behind my face wherein reside various linguistic areas
such as Broca's Area, Wernicke's Area, and Laurel &
Hardy's Area—the parts that made me think I knew the
meaning of the verb inaugurare in Italian.
Don't look
it up. Take my word that it means precisely, one-to-one
and dead on— "inaugurate." As in, "The new train line was
inaugurated yesterday." I read that the other day in the
local fish wrapper that carries notes of great import,
even export if the notes are exportant enough. Heck, it
was even on television, and they don't lie.
Thus, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, here are the various interpretations for the "The train was inaugurated yesterday":
1. The train was
admitted to or inducted into an office or position by a
formal ceremony. On a scale of 1 to 10, this gets a minus
6;
2. The train was
invested with a sacred character. Much better. Maybe a
zero;
3. The train was made
auspicious. I don't know what that means. Your call;
4. The train began with "good omens." This from
the original meaning of "augur," a Roman official who
predicted the future in accordance with omens derived from
the flight of birds, such as the pigeons that "inaugurate"
my car every morning from their perch directly above my
parking space. "Begin" is the operative verb, here.
Getting close. Six, maybe seven;
5. The train was put into public use. HAH!
Two-hundred and seven!
The upside-down Metro
sign—the international
distress sign for unhappy passengers
"Put
into public use!" Nowhere does it
say anything about "inauguration" being a meaningless
photo-op for the president of the Campania region and
the Prime Minister of Italy just to show up, cut the
ribbon, and then toddle off back to the public
truffle-trough. That's what happened. I got my camera
and went off to ride the new
Line 6 of the Naples Metro, rapid rail service
from Mergellina to Fuorigrotta. This is the so-called
Rapid Tram Line that was supposed to be finished in time
for upcoming World Cup matches —in 1990! Well, the
matches upcame and upwent and the train ran into
Brobdingnagian mismanagement and corruption. I use
"Brobdingnagian" instead of "gigantic" because if I get
beaten up for saying all this, I want it to be by
well-read thugs. The train never got under the ground.
It stalled until the recent plan to incorporate it into
the new Metro line in Naples.
So,
I got to the station and the polite young policewoman
keeping back the throng (of one) kindly told me that "They
cut the ribbon and left so the workmen could finish. They
just wanted to see if the thing really runs." Apparently,
it does, but the stations won't be ready until the summer.
[Hurray update!]
Further entries on the metropolitana