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Godfather's gossip*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Diego Gambetta
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Extract

My attention to gossip as a notion worthy of reflection was attracted by a trivial detail: the English etymology of gossip is god-sib, godfather, or, generally, god parent, ‘denoting—says the English Oxford Dictionary—the spiritual affinity of the baptized and their sponsor’. This intriguing origin alludes to gossip as the performing of an initiation ritual, the creation of an exclusive bond; above all, it bears an uncanny association with the mafia which happens to have been the topic of my research for sometime. I suppose I could have interpreted god-sib through the obvious gender bias as deriving from godmother rather than from godfather; this tallies with the Italian comare or the French commère which can also denote a gossip. But I did not think of this possibility at first. Instead, carried away by linguistic speculation, I went to check the etymology of the main Italian word for gossip, pettegolezzo. I was not a little surprised to find that the word comes from a rather less inspiring source. It comes from peto, to fart. In some northern Italian dialects, venetian, piedmontese and emilian, a common expression, ‘contar tutti i peti’, ‘to tell every fart’, refers to the habit of reporting and speculating about trivial events.

Type
Research Article
Information
European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 35 , Issue 2 , November 1994 , pp. 199 - 223
Copyright
Copyright © Archives Européenes de Sociology 1994

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