At the supermarket

Halfway down the list stands due al prezzo di uno, and the shelf label it translates is not built the same way in the two languages. Italian counts and prices. Two items, one price, a noun phrase with no verb anywhere inside it, and the same frame carries tre al prezzo di due and the shorthand 3x2 painted on the shelf edge. English gives an instruction instead. The British label reads « buy one get one free » — two imperatives and an adjective, a small sentence addressed to the shopper standing in front of it. What happened next has no parallel in Italian. That sentence was squeezed into its initials, « BOGOF », and « BOGOF » then began to behave like an ordinary noun: shops run « BOGOF deals », the trade press counts « BOGOFs », and a shopper can say that something is « on BOGOF ». Italian shortens the offer on the label but has never turned it into a word. Prendi due paghi uno keeps both its verbs, and nobody has ever pronounced it as a string of letters.