Hairy is as Hairy Does

A few days ago I read somewhere on the Intertubes that the word “pelosi” means “hairy” in Italian. Given that it’s such a fraught word, I didn’t trust an online search to confirm the accuracy of the assertion. Fortunately, I have an Italian-English dictionary on the linguistics shelf in the library here at Schloss Bodissey. I looked for words beginning with “pelos-“, and sure enough: “peloso” means “hairy”.

It seemed to me that “pelosi” must be the plural of the same (masculine) adjective, so I checked with the Italian group on skype, and they confirmed that this was indeed the case.

The problem with using this serendipitous information is that English doesn’t use plural markers with adjectives. We don’t say (just to pick a random example), “Look at all those hairies feminists!”

Nevertheless, it’s a crime to let a good joke go to waste. Vlad and I put our heads together and combined our brainpower (giving us almost an entire brain) to make this meme:

It works just fine in Italian. Many thanks to Gary Fouse for translating it.

11 thoughts on “Hairy is as Hairy Does

  1. so ‘hairied’ is how I should feel under the current ‘Pelosian’ leadership.
    I always knew that most politicians were only concerned for themselves and the hair and now but I suppose that McConnell is hard of hairing.

  2. Brilliant! I’m gonna start calling her “Hairy Nancy” from this minute onwards!! Made my day 🙂

Comments are closed.