I know. You’re thinking, “What the heck is she talking about?” Well, I think it’s important in the development of my Italian to have enough weapons in my arsenal to be able to show up my four-year-old nephew (WAY harder than you would think). This little gem surfaced the other day, when I made the mistake of getting up from my oh-so-comfortable spot on one of those bouncy IKEA rocking chairs:

chi va a l’osto perde il posto, chi va a Roma perde la poltrona

Heehee. It’s a bit tricky to translate because “losto”, according to my marito is a made up word, whose sole purpose is to rhyme with “posto”. My lovely readers have come to my rescue (and allowed me to school my husband in a thing or two, thank you!), and informed me that “l’osto” in this case is short for l’osteria – a traditional word for a restaurant/inn.

So, roughly, it translates to:

He who goes to eat looses his seat, He who goes to Rome looses the sofa.

I’ve decided to post more of the little Italian phrases I run across on a fairly frequent basis that make me giggle, so stay tuned for giggles.