What it looks like
Yet another corporate Anglicism. The kind that makes a linguistic purist’s eyebrow twitch.
“Questa soluzione fitta perfettamente con le esigenze del cliente.”
He would like to interrupt: “You should say si adatta.” He would like to explain that fittare does not exist.
Unfortunately, it does. It even has a page on the Accademia della Crusca website. The purist now feels slightly unwell.
What it really is
Fittare is more interesting than a simple English loan. It has become Italian enough to be mistreated according to Italian rules: io fitto, tu fitti, questa soluzione non fitta.
Italian offices have developed a peculiar lexical shyness. A riunione becomes a meeting; a parere becomes feedback; a valutazione becomes an assessment; an approfondimento becomes a deep dive. And instead of asking how much money we make, we calculate the ROI.
Guadagno sounds like a hardware shop. ROI sounds like an MBA.
The scene
Meeting room. Eighteen slides. Three charts. Nobody knows why.
Manager: “First I’d do an assessment to see whether the solution fitta with the client’s needs. Then a deep dive on pricing and a check of the ROI.”
The new colleague raises a hand: “So we find out what the client wants, check whether the product works for them and how much we make?”
Silence. “Yes.” Pause. “But we need a slightly more international approach.”
How to read it
Every so often somebody sounds the alarm: ITALIAN IS UNDER ATTACK. Appeals follow, borders are defended, and somebody inevitably suggests replacing computer with calcolatore.
Relax. Italian will survive. Languages borrow, bend and naturalise words all the time.
The interesting problem begins when the foreign word does not help us say something new, but makes something old sound new. Assessment sounds more authoritative than valutazione; deep dive more sophisticated than approfondimento; performance more managerial than risultato.
This is not about linguistic purity. It is about prestige.
For decades Italy imported American cars, films, music, technology and business models. At some point we also started importing the way of naming things we already had.
So an Italian company can have a vision, a mission, values, leadership, town halls and performance reviews. Then at 12:27 someone opens the door: “Oh, guys, pizza?” America ends there. Until 2 p.m., when we have a call.
Maybe the problem is not that Italian lacks words. Sometimes we are simply a little embarrassed to use them.
And anyway, fittare exists. Make peace with it. Even the Crusca says so. More or less.
