Kitchen technique

The seventeenth entry is affettare sottile, and the verb inside it is not one verb but two, spelled alike and conjugated alike, with nothing in common except their letters. The one this list wants is built on la fetta, the slice: affettate sottile l’aglio is cut the garlic thin, and l’affettato on a menu is the plate of cold meats. The other affettare comes down from Latin affectare, to strive after, and means to put on, to feign — affettare modestia is to make a show of modesty. From that second verb come the adjective affettato, mannered and studied, and the noun l’affettazione. English borrowed only the second branch, in « to affect » an accent, « an affected manner » and « affectation », and has no verb at all from the slice. So un tono affettato has nothing to do with a knife, while il prosciutto è affettato has nothing to do with airs, and only the noun beside the participle tells a reader which of the two words is standing there.