portare il cervello all'ammasso
English translation: renounce independent thinking
| 06:36 Aug 17, 2006 |
| Italian to English translations [PRO] Art/Literary - Journalism / article | |||||||
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|  Selected response from: Alfredo Tutino Local time: 13:21 | ||||||
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| Summary of answers provided | ||||
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| 4 +1 | to toe the (party) line |
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| 4 | renounce independent thinking |
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| Discussion entries: 1 | |
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Answers
29 mins confidence: 
peer agreement (net): +1
peer agreement (net): +1to toe the (party) line Explanation: The phrase "toe the line" is equivalent to "toe the mark," both of which mean to conform to a rule or a standard. The Oxford Dictionary of Word Histories (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2002; ed. by Glynnis Chantrell) says, "The idiom toe the line from an athletics analogy originated in the early 19th century" (514). So one who "toes the line" is one who does not allow his foot to stray over the line. In other words, one who does not stray beyond a rigidly defined boundary. http://www.grammartips.homestead.com/toetheline.html -------------------------------------------------- Note added at 36 mins (2006-08-17 07:12:20 GMT) -------------------------------------------------- ...qualsiasi strada si segua, nessuno si aspetti di avere l'appoggio di tutta quanta la comunità. Ciò non è possibile, e nemmeno auspicabile perché sarebbe come portare il cervello all'ammasso. E gli italiani, tra i tanti difetti, hanno il pregio di non lasciarsi intruppare da nessuno» http://www.corriere.com/printer.php?storyid=673 ...tutti coloro che , sfuggendo alle strette conformistiche dell'alternativa destra/sinistra , rifiutano di portare il cervello all' ammasso. http://www.socialisti.net/archivio18/00000b36.htm |
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7 hrs confidence:
renounce independent thinking Explanation: Mihaela's answer is good enough, but I think that I might add something on the history of this expression and on its associations for a few generations of Italians - if you can bear my verbiage. The word "ammasso" is a noun derived from the verb "ammassare". The noun came into quite common use in some parts of a still largely agricoltural Italy when the cooperative movement took hold in parts of central and Northern Italy, in the late XIX and early XX century. Expressions, for instance, like "portare il grano (o il raccolto) all'ammasso", were used when the produce of several smallholders was put together in collectively owned storage facilities that none of them could have afforded to build and operate by himself, in order to sell it more advantageoulsy. For bigger farmers and landowners, this meant an important loss of leverage: thus "l'ammasso" was a hateful thing in the eyes of the well-to-do and of most journalists and intellectuals from this class - and a symbol of the emancipation of the poor for the socialist and social catholic movements. In a wider sense, thus, the metaphoric phrase "portare il cervello all'ammasso" came to be used to lament the fact that workers couldn't be dealt with one by one individually anymore, but had collective organisations and collective bargaining power: they were accused of renouncing free individual thinking, and of stubbornly deferring in everything to their trade-union or political leaders. In later years, and especially after WW2, this use of the metaphor was reinforced by the actual behaviour of most members of the communist party - famed, expecially in the 1950s and early '60s, for not knowing what to say about anything unless they had previously read the party line in "l'Unità", the communist daily, or even for expressing conflicting "personal" opinions before and after reading it... (Having been there, I should hadd doubt, however, that those who based their "personal" opinions on the heavily doctored information given by Radio, TV and most of the daily press could be really be said to be very independent thinkers themselves...) For a longish time, thus, the expression has been associated mostly (not exclusively, of course) with right wing (or at least anti-far left) polemical attitudes: neve mind "Mussolini ha sempre ragione", catholics learning catechism by hearth and obeying the hierarchy and the Pope... Nowadays, I think that most young people is not familiar with the history of the expression, and most middle-agers tend to forget; but a sort of flavour, you know, tends to remain... I do not think there is a way to convey the methaphor - and even less this kind of history - in a translation into English; you shall have to make either of our more literal expressions do. What I said here, however, might be of some use as a background... or at least for your curiosity! |
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