As I’ve written elsewhere, Italian is a very much alive  in academic and professional settings, so now it’s time to investigate the real world, language on a day-to-day basis –  Italian is out there, a spirit that supersedes national boundaries. So where do we see and hear la bella lingua in the greater NY area?

Italian food has become one of the most popular ethnic foods in the U.S. Americans have a rich food vocabulary, from products to dishes, from grocery stores to eateries across the greater New York area, and they are continuously exposed to la bella lingua and culture, albeit their pronunciation of these words have been contaminated by funky regional linguistic phenomena, to the point where purists like me cringe. For this reason, I’ll stay away from food vocabulary and the kitchen.