L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2025 www.italoamericano.org 22 L'Italo-Americano I n Italian, per lo più (per-loh-peeoo, also written perlopiù) is an adverbial locution m e a n i n g " f o r t h e most part," "mostly," or "in general." Morphologically it is quite easy to understand, as it is formed by per, lo, and più, and belongs to a family of fixed phrases that pre- serve the article "lo" in crys- tallized uses, much like its l i n g u i s t i c b r o t h e r , p e r l o meno. We can write perlopiù in two ways, spaced or as a sin- gle word, but make sure you don't use perloppiù: that's a mistake! A s f o r h i s t o r y , t h e expression is already stable in medieval Italian: his- torical corpora for early Ital- ian (the TLIO, Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origi- ni) document prepositional patterns just like our per lo più functioning adverbially in 13th-14th-century texts, and modern reference works treat per lo più as a long- standing, unchanged quanti- fier of frequency and propor- t i o n . I n o t h e r w o r d s , i t developed with the earliest forms of literary Italian and carried the same core value into modern usage. Use today is broad and n e u t r a l a c r o s s r e g i s t e r s . 1 finger 3 year 7 taken 8 (you/tu) hate 9 (he/she) chooses 13 goddesses 14 (I) swim 16 air 17 (I) fly Using the provided meanings as clues, search for the appropriate Italian word in the grid 1 after, later 2 three 4 (plural of) new 5 hatred 6 (they) ache; hurt 10 (you/tu) believe 11 (he/she) hates 12 their 15 gold Writers select per lo più or perlopiù according to stylis- tic preference, and both fit formal prose, academic writ- ing, and journalism. In syn- tax, the locution typically is placed before the word it qualifies or after the verb. Per lo più has common synonyms and many trans- lations: you can use in its stead expressions like per la maggior parte or in genere, and translate it as "for the most part," "mostly," or "in most cases." Because it quantifies, it is common in descriptive pas- sages, including statistics, cultural commentary, or his- torical synthesis, where we need to indicate prevalence while allowing for excep- tions. In autunno, le sagre si tengono per lo più nei fine settimana In autumn, festivals are held for the most part on weekends Nei documenti superstiti compaiono per lo più copie tarde I n t h e s u r v i v i n g d o c u - ments, the entries are most- ly later copies Nelle zone interne si colti- v a n o p e r l o p i ù v a r i e t à locali In the inland areas, local varieties are mostly grown LA VITA ITALIANA TRADITIONS HISTORY CULTURE Per lo più: when things "mostly" go your way wundervisuals/Istock 1 light 2 girl 3 hand 4 three 5 to turn 6 Tuesday 7 man 8 heart 9 Monday 10 to hold 11 boy 12 woman 13 car 14 table 15 two 16 face 17 home A C R O S S D O W N ITALIAN WORD SEARCH The solution to these word games will be available on the next edition. Games courtesy of Lexis Rex

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