Interface and data protection

The tooltip on this page is il suggerimento a comparsa, and the noun inside it is one an English reader already owns without noticing what it says. « Suggestion » and il suggerimento are the same word, both from Latin suggerere, which is sub plus gerere: to carry something up from underneath. English kept only the polite half, the proposal put forward for consideration, and had to fetch a second word, « prompt », for the other half. Italian kept both under one roof. Suggerire is to suggest, but it is also to feed somebody a line they cannot remember: il suggeritore is the prompter in the theatre, working from a box sunk below the front of the stage, and non suggerire is what a teacher says to the pupil helping a neighbour through an oral test. So the Italian name for a tooltip is literal in a way the English one is not. It is not advice about what to do next. It is the line whispered from below, and a comparsa adds only that it shows itself when it is wanted.