Jul 31 - What’s The Word On The Street? Ask Stefano…
Hidden amongst the niche blogs and endless feeds of celebrity news, there’s a little known site that’s been cataloguing some of the most curious and often hilarious things that Gibraltarians say.
The creation of Stefano Blanca Sciacaluga, ‘The Word on the Street is…’ is an ever-evolving collection of quotes, overheard conversations, drunken exchanges and puzzling solecisms that have made him and his contributors laugh throughout the years.
We caught up with Stefano to see what motivated him to start this project.
“I’m a linguist, so I’ve always been interested in the language switching we do in Gibraltar, and for some reason it lends itself to a lot of weird mix-ups. In fact, beyond the usage of the languages what interests me most is how badly some people speak and to try and figure out why we speak so badly, why we make these little errors that can change the whole meaning of sentences,” he explains.
He adds that the bilingual nature of communication in Gibraltar is “an added bonus” which provides a variety of colourful phrases and plenty of amusing samples.
According to Stefano, the project shows that Gibraltarians, when speaking informally, are people who don’t really reflect on what they are saying.
“We have no problem in speaking our minds and do so with pride. This is not necessarily a bad thing. It goes to show how ‘pasota’ Gibraltarians really are, it’s the Mediterranean culture; we have the chance of speaking two languages perfectly but choose to speak something in between that at times isn’t even part of one or the other,” he says.
So what sort of quotes does Stefano hunt for? Above all, he stresses that he is primarily after “fresh” material – that is, things that have been heard recently.
“The old ones are really no good,” he says.
“It would be interesting to see the progress and change in language through time.”
Old people, in particular, have proved to be fruitful sources: “Quite frankly the older generations are the kind of people I’m after mostly…they’ll often say the funniest things and won’t think twice about it.”
There are now over 100 quotes on the site and Stefano encourages people to contribute whenever they come across anything down Main Street, at work or in the pub. To contribute, follow this link and stick to the rules: http://thewordonthestreetis.tumblr.com/submit
For some of Stefano’s other projects, visit: http://stefanoblanca.tumblr.com
(Pic: Stefano during a "jammon'" session)
