idioti — 1 thorough investigation

idioti, italian or otherwise plural, is a word a man at the bar pronounced with the certainty of a man who has not been corrected since 2003. beach vacations, he added, are a punishment. the eighth microwave, back in my apartment, agreed by humming at the wrong frequency.

i am writing this from the desk while carla is upstairs in some training session about expense codes that i was politely not invited to. that gives me, generously, until eleven. the spell-check on this machine has been doing a thing where it underlines english words in red and offers me italian alternatives, which is how i ended up googling the word idioti at 9:23am on a tuesday, with a coffee that is mostly air.

turns out idioti is the italian plural. idiot, idiots, idioti. the romance languages took a perfectly good greek word for “private citizen who does not participate” and turned it into a chorus. the kitchen, when i tested it out loud later that evening, agreed that it sounded better than the english version. the english version sounds like a complaint. idioti sounds like an aria.

since this whole cluster is built on the english word, you can read the longer thing at the cluster pillar on the word idiot, where i lay out the case for reclaiming it as a job title. this post is the smaller cousin. this post is about what happens when the spell-check tries to relocate you to italy.

idioti, the plural across romance languages

so here is what i learned, sitting at the desk with three tabs open and the etymology site i sometimes consult, vaguely. italian: idioti. spanish: idiotas. portuguese: idiotas. french: idiots, with the s silent, because french. romanian: idioți, with a little hook under the t that does something my keyboard refuses to discuss.

they all come from the same place. the greek idiotes, meaning a person who minds his own business and does not show up to the assembly. so the original idiot was, technically, a guy who skipped the meeting. which is, when you think about it, the exact thing every mid-level office worker dreams of becoming. the original idiot is the man who let the call go to voicemail and went home.

the romance languages took this and softened it. they did to idiot what they do to everything. they added vowels. they made it sing. spanish gives you idiotas in three open syllables, no edges. italian goes one further and gives you idioti, which lands like the last note of an opera nobody asked for.

why italian sounds operatic about it

italian, as a general rule, makes every word sound like it cost money. you can call a man an idiot in italian and it will sound, to an english ear, like you are inviting him to dinner. this is not a flaw in italian. this is, i think, italian’s main advantage in the long history of insults.

english is built for impact. the consonants do the work. idiot ends on a hard t, like a door closing. idioti ends on an i, which is a vowel that floats. the difference between the two words is the difference between throwing a brick and releasing a pigeon. they are both, technically, doing the same job.

i tested this in the kitchen. i said “you are an idiot” to the seventh microwave, which is the one currently in service, and it did not respond. i then said “siete idioti” to the same microwave, with the wrist gesture i remembered from a tourist menu in 2018, and i felt, briefly, european. the microwave still did not respond, but i did. the word changed me, not the appliance.

the stefan-type at the bar with opinions on this

two years ago at the corner bar there was a man, the stefan-type, who held wine the way other men hold babies. he had opinions on everything that ended in a vowel. he told me once that italian was the only language fit for cursing, “because the consonants apologize on the way out.”

i did not understand what he meant at the time. i nodded the nod i nod when stefan-types are speaking, which is the small nod of a man trying not to spill anything. but he was right. the wine man with the linen shirt was right. you can call a room of people idioti and it will land like a serving suggestion. you call them idiots in english and someone has to leave.

this is, i suspect, why An Idiot Abroad works as a title in english. the bluntness is the joke. an idioti abroad would sound like a tour package. the consonants are the reason karl pilkington gets to be the show. softer language, no show.

the kitchen where i muttered the word, alone

back to the kitchen. third yoga mat in the corner, where it has lived since 2023. the seventh microwave humming, mid-cycle, on a frozen meal that promised twelve minutes and demanded sixteen. i was practicing the word out loud the way you practice anything you intend to use socially and then never use socially.

idioti. idioti. idioti. by the fourth attempt i was rolling the t a little, which is wrong in italian and very wrong in english and possibly correct in some third language i have not been told about yet. i did this for forty-five seconds. then i felt observed, which is impossible, because i live alone, which is the entire reason i was practicing the word in the first place.

beach vacations are punishment with sand, briefly

related, because everything is related when you have been at a desk since seven. beach vacations are punishment with sand. this is a take i have held since the second time i tried to read a book on a towel and the wind read it for me, page by page, into the ocean. this is also, i now realize, a very english take. the italians, who invented the word idioti, also invented the kind of beach where you pay extra for the chair and the umbrella matches the chair and a man brings you a cold thing without being asked.

they do not, in italy, vacation idiotically. they vacation operatically. they call you idioti only if you are wearing socks with sandals, and even then, mostly with their eyes.

i have been to one beach in my life on purpose. it was four days. i came back with sunburn in the shape of a phone case and a renewed conviction that the indoors is a finished product. the third yoga mat understands this. the seventh microwave understands this. mike at the corner bar, who has not filed since 2019, explained it to me using only the word “no,” repeated.

the case for borrowing the plural

here is what i propose, and you can write this down. english needs a soft plural for idiot. we do not have one. idiots is what we have, and idiots is what you say when you mean it. we need a word for the kind of idiot you can call a friend without losing him.

the italians have it. idioti. four syllables, ends in a vowel, lands like a compliment with a small bruise. perfect for the group chat. perfect for the wine night at a coworker’s apartment where the man with the linen shirt insists nobody actually said what you remember they said, which is the textbook setup for the gaslighting pattern i wrote up in the cluster pillar, and you would like to reply but you also want to be invited back. idioti, you mutter, into your glass. nobody is offended. nobody is sure. the wine, somewhere, agrees.

english borrows from everyone. it borrowed schadenfreude. it borrowed déjà vu. it borrowed kindergarten and karaoke and tsunami and the entire menu of every restaurant in your city. it can borrow idioti. the dictionary will not stop us. the dictionary, like dave, has not picked up in years.

verdict, the plural is operatic, also accurate

the verdict is, broadly, that idioti is the better word. it does the same job in a nicer suit. it lets you mean it and not mean it at the same time, which is the whole reason the english language has any insults left at all. we are running out of soft ones. idioti is, i submit, a soft one we should keep.

i will be using it. mostly at the desk, mostly at the seventh microwave, occasionally at carla’s empty chair when she is upstairs in expense-code training. i will not be using it at the beach, because i will not be at the beach. i still think the english version is enough, on most days. on the other days, i have idioti.

i was, on that point, slightly wrong. the english version is enough. the italian version is more.

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