Hai la moccola

Buondì.

Autumn/fall has finally arrived in Bologna, where I live.

The other day it rained, weeks later than it normally does. Roomie was delighted to be able to use her little umbrella.

It’s grey, though. The sun has packed its bags and gone to Australia. Ciao to everyone who wrote to me from Melbourne, by the way.

So today we have low cloud and damp, including around Roomie’s nose which, when she jumps up to plant a kiss on my cheek, is noticeably wet. If you’ve ever been kissed by a cat or dog, you’ll know the feeling.

A runny nose needs the sort of maintenance that small creatures are not able to provide for themselves, except with their tongues, which I think we can all agree fa schifo, and so is to be avoided, despite the extra work involved for those around.

A wise owner or parent will advise their charge of their intention to rub a damp handkerchief over their nose, so as to avoid being bitten, scratched, or simply having the target squirm away and refuse to cooperate:

“Hai la moccola”

You’ve got a runny nose. Hold still (pulls out handkerchief), I’ll get that for you, so you can go back to eating mud/watching TV/coloring your fingers blue (delete as applicable) with the absolute minimum of delay.

You’re more than welcome!

The point?

A statement can function as an request, for cooperation, as in this case, or a warning. When I did my teaching course, back in the day, that was called ‘discourse analysis’.

“Ho sete!” could, for instance, mean that I’d be grateful for a glass of water, that I’d rather order the wine before the food, or simply that I’m fed up of trailing around the shops (when said by husbands).

Requests don’t have to be formulated with modal verbs, such as potere. “Potresti gentilmente portarmi un bicchiere di acqua?” is fine, but so is “Avete un po’ di acqua?”

“How can I help you?” “I need some bread.” (Mi serve del pane.)

You get the idea. It’s totally the same in English, and probably in any language.

Anyway, given that I’ve been busy with la moccola, I thought I’d research the topic a little more.

But Google wasn’t happy with my grammar, preferring il moccolo, and offering this explanation from the Treccani dictionary:

moccolo mòccolo (o móccolo) s. m. [lat. mŭccus per il class. mŭcus «muco»]. – 1. a. Muco nasale, soprattutto quando pende dalle narici sul labbro superiore.

s.m. means ‘sostantivo maschio’, masculine noun, hence the ‘o’ ending, rather than my ‘a’.

There was no doubt Google/Treccani were referring to the same thing, though: “nasal mucus, especially when hanging from the nostrils onto the upper lip”.

That describes Roomie to a ‘t’, but the gender of the noun puzzled me, given that I’ve been using it multiple times each day. I make lots of mistakes with Italian, but invariably someone will correct me, so just to be sure, I asked Stefi, who (sniffily) assured me that OF COURSE it’s ‘la moccola’.

So back to Treccani to double check https://www.treccani.it/vocabolario/ricerca/moccola/ but “La tua ricerca per moccola non ha prodotto risultati in nessun documento”.

So next I Googled “Si dice il moccolo o la moccola?”, which (asking Google a question) is often a good way to narrow things down, find out if there’s any debate. Yet no, there doesn’t appear to be: maschio, maschio, maschio.

Hitting the ‘back’ button, I noticed that my earlier searches had been helpfully ‘expanded’ by Google to include the masculine form, with the ‘o’, and not just the feminine with the ‘a’ that I’d been looking for. Would I like to see only the ‘a’ results? Yes, please Google!

Which turned up, amongst lots of pictures of candles (you have a candle stub protruding from your nose), this product page for jelly beans:

Ispirati ai romanzi di Harry Potter.
Gusti nella confezione: banana, pepe nero, mirtillo, moccola, zucchero filato, ciliegia, cannella, fango, lombrico, cerume, erba, mela verde, marshmallow tostato, uovo marcio, salsicciotto, limone, sapone, tutti frutti, vomito, anguria.

That wrapped it up: if snot is feminine for Harry and his wizarding pals, then the ‘a’ form is certainly good enough for me, and presumably for the Bolognesi, from whom Stefi claims to have learnt it, and passed it on to me.

Hey, language is like a cold virus! It has different forms, and can mutate.

Also, I daresay that Roomie will keep running up to me at inopportune moments, such as when I have my hands in the flour, to announce ‘Ho la moccola!’ (a request, remember?)

Far be it for me, foreigner that I am, to correct her.

A venerdì.