A dumb stupid question about the english language...
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Any more encouragement and Pats might treat us all to the joke about the teacher who declares it would have been quicker to say 'no'.
Wow, really interesting. In Italian, rather funnily, "mermaid" is "sirena" and "siren" is "arpia"... But I'm sure New Order meant those with the fish part of the body as "siren" and "mermaid" have somehow become synonimous (since the myth of the women with bird body remained limited to a specific age), but it's interesting to learn the difference...
What do you take me for?
Now if you'll excuse me, I have some work to finish before I get to your request.
Mermaids and Sirens are not synonomous, but share a common nature. Both are mythical creatures that represent a similar fear: the alluring, beautiful woman who tempts a man to his doom. It's one of those Jungian archetypes things. Then again, there has to be something that explains why men get married.
Your all wrong !!!!
I believe the title is nothing to do with ladies from the sea, but in fact what Hooky & Barney used to do every sat night down the Hac when the druggies & gangsta's were causing mayhem & the two museos were waiting for James Anderton's finest to turn up.
bLuE oRdEr wrote: Mick-- my great uncle's name was Sireno; is that the masculine version of sirena?
*Uh, never heard that name! 
My sister's name is Serena but that just mean "serene" (calm and happy) and has no male version.
I think I've heard "Sirena" (as siren, in this case) very rare as a name, but never "Sireno"... that word doesn't even exist in Italian, as the male of "sirena" is "sirenetto", meaning a mythological creature of the sea...
if you Google "Sireno" it seems that it's actually a Spanish name and it should be something like the male version of Serena we don't have in Italy, but probably the Spanish do... but our Spanish mates certainly will know better...
Hmmm.. well, he was born in a small town near Venice, and his father was Italian. But this makes an interesting mystery; his mother was not the same woman as the mother of his older brother and younger brother (my grandfather). So maybe his mother was Spanish? I don't know. But another interesting thing is that my grandfather's name was Gino; at the Italian consulate in San Francisco, the woman there told me that was impossible, that he must have another name, because Gino is a diminutive form of another name. Yet when his birth certificate arrived from Italy, there was his name: Gino. So it seems my family didn't know anything about proper Italian names...
Gino is definitely a very common Italian name (that woman was quite ignorant). Yes, it's a diminutive of Luigi (Luigi : Luigino : Gino, that's how it evolved), but has become a name of its own and many are named just Gino. It's the same with Gianni (from Giovanni) or, more similarly to our example, Nino (Giovanni : Giovannino : Nino) and Pino (Giuseppe : Giuseppino : Pino), it can happen that diminutives become proper names, a bit like in England or America you can be named not with the full name Michael but also just Mike or Mick, only this time the diminutive is made of the last bit of the original name...
BREAKING NEWS!!!
The name "Sireno" exists in Italian as well!
It's just fookin rare! (never heard it before)
Reference: http://www.santiebeati.it/nomi/Detailed/3624.html
I'll translate for you: Derived from Greek, in Latin became Sirenus, means "very sweet singer".
Celebrated on February 23rd in memory of Saint Sireno, monk and martyr.
I also see it's a surname which is rather common, though not in the region where I live: http://www.google.it/search?hl=it&q=Sireno&meta=lr%3Dlang_it
