No wonder I have no "virtue" just now. This savage
Vulturnian wind - did it not sap the Roman virtue at Cannae?
All those relics of older civilizations are disappearing under the
standardizing influence of conscription, emigration and national schooling.
And soon enough the Contranome-system will become a thing of the
past. I shall be sorry to see it go, though it has often driven me
nearly crazy.
What is a contranome?
The same as a sopranome. It is a nickname which, as with the Russian
peasants, takes the place of Christian and surname together. A man will
tell you: "My name is Luigi, but they call me, by contranome,
O'Canzirro. I don't know my surname." Some of these nicknames are
intelligible, such as O'Sborramurella, which refers to the man's
profession of building those walls without mortar which are always
tumbling down and being repaired again; or O'Sciacquariello (acqua - a
leaking - one whose money leaks from his pocket - a spendthrift); or San
Pietro, from his saintly appearance; O'Civile, who is so uncivilized, or
Cristoforo Colombo, because he is so very wideawake. But eighty per cent
of them are quite obscure even to their owners, going back, as they do,
to some forgotten trick or incident during childhood or to some pet name
which even in the beginning meant nothing. Nearly every man and boy has
his contranome by which, and by which alone, he is known in his
village; the women seldomer, unless they are conspicuous by some
peculiarity, such as A'Sbirra (the spy), or A'Paponnessa (the fat
one) - whose counterpart, in the male sex, would be O'Tripone.
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