Tag Archives: madhouse

“Pazzoria”

Informant’s Sicilian grandfather would, in hectic social or familial situations, exclaim “pazzoria,” or something to that effect, a loose Italian translation of “madhouse” in order to indicate the lunacy of the environment.

The informant was unsure of the exact spelling and was unable to find an authored example while I spoke to him, but he distinctly remembered his Grandfather saying “pazzoria” in the context he described.

“Pazzo” can indeed mean “crazy” and the suffix “ria” in Italian certainly suggests an establishment that deals in a particular thing, so the idea that a Sicilian man would say this sounds entirely plausible.