According to Word Reference, the Italian word “uffa” means “what a bore!” But, as you most probably already know, Italians have their own body language too and when uffa is accompanied by a shrug of the shoulders, maybe a pair of eyes darting up to the heavens, a helluva lot more can be conveyed in those two short syllables. I’ve heard it being used to signify a whole range of emotions from boredom to dejection but also desperation.
As the house renovation progresses, I have found myself using uffa more than I would have liked over the last two weeks.
The first time was finding out that our made-to-measure bathtub had actually been made to the wrong measurements!
Though it is a decent size (9 sq m), our bathroom doesn’t have a single corner at 90° (do you remember my post about Pythagorus?), it has a sliding door in the centre stopping us from using that part of it (i.e. no tubes or toilets) and on the only really good wall, there has two windows which categorically rule out any other kind of sanitary artifice. All this adds a certain je ne sais quoi when you’re trying to add elements which are – generally speaking – square or requiring privacy.
Consequently, our bathtub was going to be made to spec – with a rounded finish compensating for the the lack of right angles. The shower unit is already installed and when we inquired when the bathtub might be arriving and received that email above…… our reaction was a simultaneous: “uffa!”
If only it were just the bathroom people who are making mistakes.
On Saturday, the carpenters came to fit the shutters that they’d been cleaned up and restored….. only to find that as a result of some really shoddy workmanship from Tweedledum and Tweedledee (our two insulation fitters / painters / buffoons) the outside walls are very visibly not straight.
The shutters were taken straight back to the carpentry workshop for more adjustments. Uffa.
Today, I’ve just shown the boss of the flooring company that two of the four tiles that were fitted just over a month ago have come loose.
It was little short of a miracle that the plumber came this morning to fit our boiler…… but he left after just a few minutes having made this unfortunate discovery. This then meant calling the flooring company who came round to take a look. Fortunately the boss has promised that, this evening, a workman will come to glue down the tiles once again….. but we’ve lost valuable time because of all these incompetencies. Now, we’ll cross our fingers and pray to the powers-that-be that the plumber comes back again before the end of the week. Uffa.
Despite all this doom and gloom, the word uffa has a pretty interesting origin. It dates back to around the 14th century when the Vatican State was building St Peter’s cathedral. Because it was for the Pope, all the necessary goods which arrived (stones, sand, sacks, sheep, mules) were stamped with the Latin abbreviation “A.U.F.” which stands for “Ad Usum Fabricae” and gave all these goods total tax exemption. Because there were so many of these items needed for the construction project, the customs officers spent their days saying “auf! auf!” and over time, that morphed into uffa.
Similarly when work started on the Duomo in Florence, all the materials were stamped with: “A U.F.O” meaning “Ad usum Florentinae Operae” and were therefore exempt from the city taxes. Even to this day, “a ufo” means “free” i.e. mangiare a ufo = to eat for free.
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