To that extent, then, the phrase carries with it a sense of the all-pervading influence of religion on a Muslim’s life – a brief prayer inserted into the most mundane of remarks. But it can also be used by the less devout as a way of avoiding responsibility or commitment. If all is in God’s hands, the speaker cannot be held responsible if things go wrong.
If you call on an Arab businessman in his office and his secretary tells you that he will see you later, ‘insha’allah’, then you are in for a long and probably fruitless wait. In this sense, the word might be best translated by the Spanish mañana, which literally means ‘tomorrow’, but more often has a feeling about it of ‘maybe tomorrow, maybe the next day, maybe never’. Between those two meanings of insha’allah, between the devout prayer and the smiling brush-off, lies a trap for the incautious non-Muslim.
There is a story of a wise and experienced Western businessman who fell into this trap when visiting a client to get across the message that a bill that had been outstanding for several months might usefully be paid. He was greeted with smiles, coffee and lengthy enquiries about the health of his family, and questions about the bill were brushed away as a mere nothing that should not be allowed to interrupt this pleasant reunion of old friends.
‘It is nothing,’ said the client from behind his large desk, with an expansive wave of his hand. ‘Do not worry about this. The cheque will be signed tomorrow, insha’allah.’
The businessman, who had given up a whole morning to make this visit, and who had hoped to leave with a signed cheque safely in his pocket, was unimpressed. Since it was the man behind the desk, not Allah, who was going to sign the cheque, he suggested pointedly, the matter could be settled even more quickly. Like now.
And suddenly the atmosphere was different. Where there had earlier been warmth and conviviality, there was now icy formality. Instead of a relaxed conversation about an acknowledged debt that was to be paid, there was now a tense and unsmiling exchange about his lack of respect, his apparent frivolity about deeply held religious feelings and the hurt that he had caused.
The matter went no further and – several weeks later – he got his money. But he never forgot the lesson he had learned about the dangers of insha’allah.
Veline
(Italian)
The job title of the glamorous young dancers employed to deliver the news – on sheets of paper – to male newsreaders
It would be a dull old world if everywhere were just the same. What inspires a sharp intake of breath and a sucked-lemon expression in one place is likely to be greeted with whistles of approval, stamping feet and raucous laughter in another.
Take veline (vel-EE-neh), for instance. It’s an old Italian word that, back in mediaeval times, used to mean the fine calfskin on which manuscripts were written – the same stuff that was called vellum in English. From there, it was a short journey to thin paper, and today sheets of tissue paper are referred to as veline. But the word developed another, more specialized, sense. During the last century, it came to be used specifically for the thin sheets of paper on which carbon copies were made – piles of them famously emanated from the offices of the Fascist government of Benito Mussolini, with official statements and decrees.
Then and afterwards, they featured prominently in newsrooms, where multiple copies of stories were rewritten and circulated as they developed. In English, they were called flimsies, which remains a good translation in more ways than one for the way the word veline has evolved in Italian.
The magic of computerization has replaced the endless flow of updates carried by copy-boys, runners or harassed television producers, but back in the 1980s, the Italian television channel Canale 5 launched a satirical, irreverent news programme called Striscia la Notizia. The word notizia means news, and striscia can be either a comic strip or a line of cocaine, which tells you something about the character of the programme. We’re talking a mixture of Mock the Week and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart rather than the evening news. But one of its most notable features was that stories were carried to the newsreader onscreen by slim and sexy young dancers – the veline. The word flimsy was applicable not just to the papers they carried but also to the clothes that they wore.
And that is how the word veline gained its modern meaning. The people who produced Virgil, the Roman Empire, the Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo gave us a new word for half-naked young women dancing across the studio clutching the details of the latest Cabinet appointments or news of the economy. ‘Bimbos’, we might say in English.
But ‘bimbos’ has too much of an air of disapproval to work well as a translation. Bimbo isn’t a word that suggests that a woman might have a university degree or political ambitions. No young woman is going to describe herself as a bimbo, but in Italy the veline developed a culture and a popularity of their own. Under the premiership of Silvio Berlusconi – who owned Canale 5 – several of his personal favourites among the veline without any discernible political experience appeared as candidates for the European Parliament or were appointed to high-profile positions in local and national government. This was the golden age of velinismo, or bimbo-ism.
Before we get too judgemental, perhaps we should remember that in England Page 3 no longer simply means what comes between Page 2 and Page 4. Famous or infamous, depending on your point of view, over the past forty-five years the Sun newspaper’s bare-breasted glamour models have given the phrase ‘Page 3’ a meaning of its own. They also, like the veline, became famous for their pronouncements on the news stories of the day. The British have form when it comes to sexism in advertising and the news media.
The word flimsy was applicable not just to the papers they carried but also to the clothes that they wore.
However, Page 3 girls, popular as they have been, haven’t yet started appearing on the benches of the House of Commons. The regional Police and Crime Commissioner or the head of the Drinking Water Inspectorate are unlikely to supplement their incomes by leaping around on a television screen in their underwear. Veline is not a word we’re often going to need in English, but it might still be better than the sneering superiority of ‘bimbo’.
Perhaps veline would just sound a little gentler – more relaxed and less critical of the people we’re talking about and how they earn their living. And some of us at least would find that a distinct improvement.
Krengjai
(Thai)
An acute awareness of other people’s feelings; a desire to make others feel comfortable