April 15, 2014, 17:00
GeoffAnybody here speak Italian?
In the latter episodes of the 1960s TV series, "McHale's Navy, McHale and crew were supposedly stationed in the town of Voltafiore. I know that "fiore" is "flowers, and that "Volta" is a family name (from which we have the unit of electrical measurement)but what does "volta" actually mean? I can't find it.
April 15, 2014, 17:30
<Proofreader>It's from track and field. Originally it was pole volta.
April 15, 2014, 19:35
tinmanFrom the OED Online:
quote:
volta, n.
Etymology: < Italian volta turn, etc., feminine past participle of volgere, volvere to turn, employed as a noun.
Volta or La Volta, is a type of dance. See
Volta at Wikipedia for a number of uses of the word.
April 15, 2014, 20:27
KallehGoogle Translate says that
volta means "time" in Italian.
April 16, 2014, 09:14
zmježd Some of the meanings of
volta.
It does not mean time as an abstract concept, but in the sense of an event that happened at some indeterminate time, e.g.,
c'era una volta means "once upon a time".
The name of the factitious town reminds me of another Italian compound:
girasole 'sunflower' which is a calque on
herliotrope (from Greek). Just an idea.
April 16, 2014, 09:27
GeoffSince I don't differentiate between "V" and "B" very well, I had long thought that it was "Boltafiore." Bolta is cattle fodder, which, I assume, flowers at some point.
April 16, 2014, 21:06
Kallehquote:
It does not mean time as an abstract concept, but in the sense of an event that happened at some indeterminate time, e.g., c'era una volta means "once upon a time".
Very interesting. I hadn't thought about it before, but there are a number of different concepts for
time, aren't there?