Friday, September 9, 2011

Great Italian Words: Asistemare (part one in a series)

Hands down, asistemare is my favorite Italian word. Like so many great Italian words, it can mean many, many things.

You can asistemare your bedroom when it is messy. When you arrive in a new hotel room, you might need to asistemare your things before heading out for the evening. Restaurant kitchens and pizzerias need some to be constantly asistamare'd. When you come home from the market, you need to asistemare the new things you've purchased.

If you had an employee or personal assistant who could asistemare anything, the world would be your oyster.

The adjective form of asistemare is even better. An attractive, well made pizza, with evenly distributed toppings could be described as a pizza "bella asistemata".

In looking for a definition of asistemare, I ran into trouble. I couldn't find the word in a dictionary. Turns out it isn't a word after all. The real word is "sistemare", which according to google translate means all these things: fix, place, arrange, accommodate, settle, adjust, fix up,
position, settle down, put in order, sort, smooth over.

I could have sworn everyone pronounces it a-sistemare, with the "a" in front. I like to believe asistemare is a real word. Such a great word, in fact, that no one dares to define it.



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