compish?

I often hear native Eng speakers say 'compish?'

I guess from the context that it means understand?

Is the spelling right? Where's this word from?

thanks

What context are you referring to?

I've never heard anybody say that.

I wonder if you mean capisce (pronounced cap-eesh), the Italian word for 'do you understand?'/'get it?'.

Rover

Also spelled "capiche" in AmE.

Yes it is an italian word (capisce), but avoid it in formal situations, or with people you are not close to.;-)

Also, the terminal 'e' is pronounced in Italian. American Italian derivatives often omit this, notably in names, like Stallone, Corleone.

Raymott said:

Also, the terminal 'e' is pronounced in Italian. American Italian derivatives often omit this, notably in names, like Stallone, Corleone.

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Interesting. I've never heard Corleone pronounced without the terminal -e. I've often heard it pronounced incorrectly but never as if it finishes with an "n".

emsr2d2 said:

Interesting. I've never heard Corleone pronounced without the terminal -e. .

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Me too as in the move The Godfather.(Vito corleone,Michel Corleone...)

Raymott said:

How is "Corleone" supposed to be pronounced? - Yahoo! Answers

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I have seen that movie more than five times but still I didn't know that there were so many versions for the pronunciation of
I see the original God Father(Vito) pronouncing it with e at the end.

Well, there are plenty of mispronunciations of many words but that particular surname is so famous that I am genuinely staggered that anyone doesn't pronounce it using the original and correct Italian pronunciation. Even people who have never seen The Godfather have probably heard the name many times so should know how to pronounce it.

With "Stallone" I guess his surname has been Americanised over the years since his family actually moved to America. That happens a lot. I imagine that, as an actor, it's also a lot easier to have a surname that doesn't need thinking about. I imagine any real members of a Corleone family in Italy are appalled at the mispronunciation of their name!

emsr2d2 said:

... I imagine any real members of a Corleone family in Italy are appalled at the mispronunciation of their name!

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I imagine not. ;-)There was variation in the film, but if I remember right the village of Corleone was in Sicily. Locals - in the part of the film set in Sicily - tended to drop the final vowel. So did the older Corleones in the US, although Corleones born in the USA used the official pronunciation - having learnt that 'that's what Italians do'. 'Italian' (both the nationality and the language) is a relatively modern concept). My sister-in-law, from Calabria (not too far from Sicily), tends to drop her final -Es, as did a schoolfriend of mine with the unlikely name of Inglese (always addressed by one teacher as 'Ingleesh'); his family, I believe, were from Naples.

The American use of capisce, with the Anglicized pronunciation (of the original Sicilian capisc' reflected in the spelling 'capeesh')has been adopted in the criminal world - even among people who know nothing of Italian (still less the Italic dialect spoken in rural Sicily in the late 19th and early 20th century) ;-)

b

BobK said:

'Italian' (both the nationality and the language) is a relatively modern concept).

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That's right Bob. It was only after 1871, with the unification of Italy, that Sicilians and Venetians, etc. were expected to speak Italian - which is based on Tuscan. My paternal grandmother, from Lombardy, was considered educated because she could speak Italian. (OK, I'm old, as were my father and grandmother, so that's a while back now).