Time for a spring pruning - 15 olives trees, 10 fruit trees, 3 cypresses and 160m of oleanders and photinia. Guido helped us by leading the pruning - as he knows what he is doing, he is the skilled labour - and Janet and I were the unskilled labour cleaning up, 3 half-days in total. Everything now looks so much better and ready for the summer growth. Apart from our painful backs, we also learned the importance of small differences of one letter..
Potere - to be able to
Portare - to carry
Potare - to prune
We need to be clear that we can carry the prunings...
And thus it is that the past tense of pruning (ie to say ‘he has pruned’) is ‘ha potato’. To an English ear this sounds very like ‘he has a potato’.
And once this ear-worm has found its way in, it is almost impossible not to walk around the garden saying ‘he has potato’d’ which is a bizarre blend of English and Italian past tenses (perhaps - Italglish?)
Such is the way that my mind seems to work now...
Potere - to be able to
Portare - to carry
Potare - to prune
We need to be clear that we can carry the prunings...
And thus it is that the past tense of pruning (ie to say ‘he has pruned’) is ‘ha potato’. To an English ear this sounds very like ‘he has a potato’.
And once this ear-worm has found its way in, it is almost impossible not to walk around the garden saying ‘he has potato’d’ which is a bizarre blend of English and Italian past tenses (perhaps - Italglish?)
Such is the way that my mind seems to work now...
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