Xenophobe's Guide to the Italians

Manners

Italians are courteous people, and well-mannered. Greetings are important and, since the Italians are very physical, hand-shaking and kissing are the norm. They convey genuine warmth and pleasure at seeing people again, even if they have seen them the day before or even that morning. Kissing is on both cheeks and there are no taboos about men greeting each other this way. Hand-shaking has the added advantage of revealing that neither party is holding a weapon.

The Italians are enthusiastic and call one another cara and bella (darling and beautiful) at the drop of a hat. Yet before crossing someone’s threshold they will ask “Permesso?” (May I have permission?). Ciao is an informal greeting used both on meeting and on departure. Buongiorno (Good day) is used for most of the day until a certain point in the late afternoon, when people will greet each other with Buonasera (Good evening), as if the afternoon did not exist. They are much more rigid about the difference between evening and night, and “What did you do last night?” will be regarded as a nosy or even impertinent question, but “What did you do yesterday evening?” won’t raise any eyebrows at all.

It Italy there are three possible forms of addressing others: the tu, voi and lei forms. The tu form is used in the family, by young people with one another, by adults who know each other well, and by colleagues. Formal conversation traditionally requires the use of surnames, and informal the use of first names, but in recent years a mixing of forms has come into use. So the travel agent or mechanic might refer to her or himself as Maria Cristina or Sergio, but still call their customers Dottor Rossi or Signora Ferrari, and the lei form would be used in conversation.

Strangers are addressed as signor and signora. Signora is generally used even if the woman is technically signorina (an unmarried one). Professional titles are much more widely used than in Britain and America. Dottore is not used just for medical doctors, but for any form of graduate; professore is the term for all teachers, not just at university; not only composers, but craftsmen and even judo teachers, are called maestro; ingegnere is very highly prized, reflecting the high status that engineering graduates enjoy. Professional or honorary titles are also often used for famous people, so Giovanni Agnelli used to be referred to as l’avvocato (the Lawyer) and Silvio Berlusconi is il cavaliere (the Knight). Nobody minds if

the professional titles are not used in exactly the right way, as long as they flatter the recipient.

Grazie and prego are the mainstay of Italian manners, but it is not considered rude to ask for a coffee in a bar by saying in a loud voice, “A coffee”; one is buying a service and being over-polite could be considered as false politeness and therefore rude.

Italians are incapable of saying sorry in the usual sense; if they are not sorry, they feel they don’t need to say anything, and if they are sorry, they can say it in the confessional.

Punctuality is only relatively important in Italy and the time is often treated as approximate. Being late for appointments is tolerated rather than welcomed – a quarter of an hour is acceptable, but half an hour is not. So university professors can turn up for their lectures up to a quarter of an hour after the scheduled start, but if they pass that deadline they might find the lecture theatre empty.

Italians could never be considered good at queuing: in fact the idea of standing in line tends to make them laugh. The scrummage that occurs while waiting to go on the chairlift at ski resorts, or to buy tickets for a football match or a concert, occasionally creates real problems. The introduction of number dispensers in some of the places where the worst fights used to break out, such a public office or a fish counter, is to some extent solving the problem. People enjoy collecting the tickets and like the implied ‘fair play’. What could be fairer than arriving early at the office, getting a ticket, going out to do some shopping or to have a cappuccino and then returning to the office just in time for their number to be called.