Sound engineering

The sixth entry is l’alimentazione phantom, and the borrowed half of it has relatives an English reader already owns. Behind it stands Greek phántasma, an appearance, a thing that shows itself. Latin took it in as phantasma, and from there it reached English through French in more than one shape. One is « phantom », the apparition. Another is « fantasy », which in medieval use named the faculty that makes images in the mind; in everyday speech that word was worn down until it became « fancy », so that a passing fancy and a phantom are the same noun arriving centuries apart. Italian received it as well, and writes it with an « f », because Italian turns that Greek letter into « f » wherever it appears: il fantasma, la fantasia, fantastico. The spelling with « ph » in this entry is therefore not Italian spelling at all. It is the English trade term taken over whole, kept as it was printed on the equipment, and left invariable behind the noun, which is where Italian parks a borrowed modifier.