Culaccino

By  Erika Hoffman

When we pulled open the door of an Italian restaurant a bellhop in Chicago recommended, I glanced at its name etched into the massive glass pane next to the door. Under the words was an illustration of a circle that seemed faded or splotchy on the bottom half. Curious, it was. Curious was I. “Il Culaccino” with a small “il” and larger letters for the following noun was the eatery’s name. I know no Italian, so it’s not something I’d readily be capable of deciphering. I figured “il’ meant “the.” Yet, because I speak French, I know “Cul” means “bottom,” like in ‘cul de sac’ and “cul’ connotes something circular. Nonetheless, I had no clue.

When the owner sat us, I asked the translation of “culaccino”

“The mark left on a table by a wine glass,” he said.

How interesting! I mentally noted how a single word can spark curiosity in someone unfamiliar with it. A solitary foreign word can describe something which would require several English words to define. I recalled Mark Twain’s advice about using the exact word when writing: “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.”

I also thought how seeing a unique word makes the viewer of it curious, and this curiosity evokes action. The written word should create emotion in a reader be it sad, happy, or afraid, and these evoked emotions compel a reader to continue reading. So does awakening a reader’s curiosity.

In a TV ad for Viking cruise line the owner, Torstein Hagen, advises folk to “Be curious and then go.”  It’s effective. He states being kind, honest, and hard-working are important traits but so is curiosity. An inquisitive explorer can travel figuratively. You learn from your armchair if you read. 

People like to discover new things from literature whether they be facts about a foreign place, a historical period, or an unfamiliar modus vivendi. They also like new vocabulary! Sometimes, a foreign title will entice a browser as much as the book cover; think Pachinko!

Don’t avoid including foreign phrases or charming terms of concepts or things. They spice up your composition. Therefore, the next time you set your characters dining on amuse-bouche, displaying schadenfreude while they discuss their kin’s misfortunes or when they react gobsmacked about what they witnessed when Johnny Depp took the stand, ponder how you can employ a fantastic beast of a word to gussy up the scene. When those two doppelgangers of your imagination arise from the table en plein air, have one character note the culaccino left behind from her wine glass. She’ll exclaim: What a muck I’ve made!

Now your readers will know these are two British chicks without your resorting to any exposition at all! Sometimes, Twain’s “mot juste” hails from across the pond or across a border, and it will add a flavorful dimension to your piece and make your reader curious to consume more.

Erika Hoffman writes nonfiction stories for Chicken Soup for the Soul, Sasee of Myrtle Beach, and other anthologies, ezines, and magazines. She’s a Duke University alumna, former teacher, wife, mother of four, and grandma of eight. Although she grew up in New Jersey, she’s spent her adult life in the South—Georgia and North Carolina. Erika has travelled to many countries and enjoys visiting them, appreciating their beauty and uniqueness, but is proud to call North Carolina her favorite venue.

Collections of her published stories and essays are on Amazon: Erika’s Take on Writing, My Sassy Life et al.