aliza24 wrote:My family's been in the US for a few generations. We still have some old expressions that have been passed down that we say and there's one that I've always been curious about.
I don't know how you would spell it- or even if it's been changed over the years- so I'm curious if anyone else has ever heard something similar.
It goes something like this (written as it would sound it in English):
Cheech kah-mah-nah kah-lah
Kah-lah kah-mah-nah cheech
Or an approximate Italian spelling:
cicci camana calla
callla camana cicci
It's supposed to be the equivalent of "the pot calling the kettle black"
As in- if someone who is short calls someone else short you say "cicci camana calla, calla camana cicci!"
FYI- My people were from the Alife area in Caserta. A little NE of Naples.
If anyone's ever heard something like this I'd love to hear from you.
I know not if can be helpful, and I know if it is the same but :
"the pot calling the kettle black" is no the equivalent.
The phrase
cicci camana calla
calla camana cicci
really:
cicci ca' mana calla
calla ca' mana cicci
and in this shape it are also some other phrase (also:
mamma Cicci me mena, Cicci me mena mamma) ...
litterally:
Cicci (Ciccio in dialect Ciccio and Ciccio is diminutive of Francesco; Ciccio is used in general, for meaning a false dupe person, a person that seeming dupe, but really is wily, sly or so)
with the hand call, with hand call Cicci;
it was said when a people ( mythical Cicci) making something for appearing innocent in a fact and instead is the guilty, and in that he wish appearing a dupe, so the false innocence seeming more true... because nobody can suspect of a dupe person....
pratically, the phrase was used for to say abt a people, that seeming ingenuous but really is not ingenuous...
suanj