Everyone knows him, everyone uses it, but few people know that "Non avere l'ombra di un quattrino" is a saying of the tradition that originates from registration in Novo vocabolario della lingua italiana of Firenze, published in Florence between 1870 and 1897 with the desire to spread the Florentine language expressions, according to Alessandro Manzoni.
The meaning, word by word
That being said toscano is easy to interpret, but after its spread were advanced different proposals on the true meaning of the word on which is based its meaning. Spout has a value element of reinforcement that wants to express a small amount or a small part of a whole.
A theory confirmed in Remarks at Malmantile, book of proverbs and sayings, between the claims of literature published in Florence between 1688 and 1750 where he wrote: "they have a beak was broke, don't have a money; and that Word beak makes greater expression».
And today?
Today, a far cry from the seventeenth-century literary references, "not having the shadow of a farthing" is an expression that has passed the wall of pessimism and used so simpatico, like joke to defuse a situation that we have in common in many.
For this we Tuscan we always laugh about, because the best way to move forward is to have a laugh over! In one way or another we are tackling them problems as well, trying to smile and to help it understand the value to those who have a harder time doing it!
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