Conte Luna

January 15, 2004 7:20 PM

I am looking for an English translation of the Italian phrase "Conte Luna." This literary translates to "count moon," but what does it mean? I saw it on a box of Linguine no.19.

Is this something to do with the phases of the Moon?

posted by romanb to Writing & Language (9 answers total)

it could be Tell the moon or moon story or moon tale (something like that)
posted by amberglow at 7:26 PM on January 15, 2004

well, Conte Luna is the name of the pasta company. My best guess is that it means 'Count Luna' (like Count Dracula), the protagonist of Verdi's Il Trovatore
posted by vacapinta at 7:45 PM on January 15, 2004

The company opened the plant in North Dakota in 1991 named Conte Luna Foods after its east coast retail brand, which literally means “Count Moon.”

Now they dont' say if it means count as in Monte Cristo or count as to sequence numbers.

I believe it means to count as in sequence, because in Verdi it's "Conte di Luna", Count of Luna, I believe the "di" must be there to designate the title.

Now another possibility is that this is a North Dakota company that just picked a nice name. I'm going with that one.

PS, Paolo Conte rules.
posted by geoff. at 11:57 PM on January 15, 2004

I doubt it's 'count' in the sense of numbers, as the verb contare has no stem + e conjugation that I'm aware of. Third person singular present tense is conta, not conte.

Calling matteo or languagehat....
posted by romakimmy at 6:28 AM on January 16, 2004

Definitely "count" as in dukes and earls. geoff, you don't need the di there; cf. this plot summary (in Italian) of the opera:

Accanto al giovane c'è sua madre Azucena, la zingara accusata di aver ucciso il fratello del Conte Luna ancora in fasce. Azucena racconta al figlio la terribile morte di sua madre... Rivela che nel delirio causato dalla vendetta aveva gettato, per errore, il proprio figlio nel fuoco risparmiando Garcia il fratello del Conte Luna...

posted by languagehat at 8:27 AM on January 16, 2004

When the above Italian passage is translated from Italian into Portugese and French and back to English, it looks a little something like this:

At the side of the new person it has her mother of Azucena, will zingara marked to have always assassinated the brother of the moon of the accounts in the bands. Azucena indicates the dead terrible son of its mother... It reveals that in the caused insanity of the vendetta it had played, for the error, only wire in the Garci' economy has fire the brother of the moon of the accounts...

posted by hama7 at 8:46 AM on January 16, 2004

i just wanted to post the response my italian buddy gave me when i asked him the question.

"Conte Luna".... It could be the name of a person with both C and L uppercase. Luna as a last name and Conte is a kind of the english Baron...therefore "Baron Moon" or "Count Moon" as you said. Conte is one of those bullshit name used by those bullshit rich noble people.

are you plaining to win a trip to italy without let me know?
posted by yeahyeahyeahwhoo at 1:16 PM on January 16, 2004

Response by poster: My curiosity is well satisfied, big thanks!

Conte is one of those bullshit name used by those bullshit rich noble people.

I like this guy!
posted by romanb at 1:52 PM on January 16, 2004

Moon as in Reverend Moon?
posted by stbalbach at 11:12 PM on January 16, 2004