Attaccabottoni

We all know the type. She corners you at work (or somewhere else where there is no escape) and proceeds to unload all the tiresome, boring details of her life on you, in an endless whiny monologue filled with stultifying digressions, pointless tangents, and "witty" asides. You'll know when she is being "funny" because she will tell you so, using phrases such as, "I laughed for ten minutes straight" or "It was so funny, you would have died laughing."

Some of the fascinating conversational topics this type of person seems to favor are:

* Why my daughter's (friend's/sister's) kid is a genius (and you should be impressed) and/or adorable things my daughter's (friend's/sister's) kid did.

* Traffic /morning commute / car troubles.

* Illness I experienced described in great detail.

* Errands that I ran / need to run.

* Something really funny that happened to me (Note: it is never funny).

* My opinions about world events (Note: while this technically could be interesting, in reality, it will not be, because 1.you won't get a word in edgewise, 2.your opinion does not count, and 3.the speaker's opinions are stupid and/or ill-informed).

* What I had for dinner.

* How much work I have and how overburdened I am.

* A very detailed synopsis of a television show that I watch (that you do not) or a movie I have seen (that you neither saw nor wished to see).

* My paranoid views about how my privacy is being invaded by the government, identity thieves, etc. (Note: it is not).

The list goes on and on.

Well, it turns out there is a word for this type of person! The word is "attaccabottoni." It comes from the Italian words for "button" and "attack." Howard Rheingold, author of They Have a Word for It, defines it as "a doleful bore who buttonholes people and tells sad, pointless tales."

The book is very entertaining. It's a compendium of useful words from around the world that do not have counterparts in English. Words like schadenfreude or saudade....or attaccabottoni.

I'm really enjoying it, despite the fact that the author looks like this:

They Have a Word for It: A Lighthearted Lexicon of Untranslatable Words & Phrases by Howard Rheingold