A little lesson of Italian/Spanish

J.E. Shields jshields104@insightbb.com
Fri, 23 Jan 2004 10:19:53 PST
Jim and Angelo,

That just goes to show you how weak my Spanish a la Hoosier is.    So it 
might be ungrammatical Italian.

At 12:25 PM 1/23/2004 -0500, Jim McK wrote:

>Well, Jim, maybe you've taught me something: I always thought the name
>Stella de Oro was uncouth Italian!

But I guess it could also be ungrammatical Spanish!

At 06:28 PM 1/23/2004 +0100, Angelo wrote:

>the writing ' Stella de Oro' is nor Spanish neither Italian. If it was 
>Italian it would be 'Stella d'Oro', while in Spanish would be 'Estrella de 
>Oro '
>
>Well, you know now a new Italian word in addition to pizza and spaghetti !!

Now I know a new word in Spanish too, "Estrella".  It's amazing what all I 
learn in this forum.  Why couldn't Walter just have given it a simple name, 
like "Goldiger Stern" or "Stern vom Gold"?  Who can tell me what language 
might call it "Staila da Aur"?  (It's not Portuguese.)

Naming cultivars can be a very hairy business, it seems.  Note that bad 
grammar and poor spelling are not counted off, nor corrected, in 
registration of cultivar names.  Not only that, but adherence to the 
registration system is purely voluntary, so anyone is free to call Walter 
Jablonski's 'Stella de Oro' anything he or she wishes, even 'Stella d'Oro' 
which seems to be the most common form of the name used in the nursery and 
landscaping trade.

In parts of the world where STELLA won't grow well, I believe they often 
instead grow something else, similar, like 'Happy Returns'.  It is a little 
taller and a little lighter yellow than 'Stella De Oro', as I recall, but 
it also reblooms well.  That is certainly true for the warmer parts of 
Florida, and probably in Southern California to some extent too.

They are both yellow, and both depressingly common where they are 
used.  It's just not a strip mall without some STELLA planted around 
it.  I've sold a lot of 'Stella de Oro' over the years; thank you, Walter.

Jim Shields
in central Indiana (USA) where we speak Hoosier, sort of our own version of 
bad English



*************************************************
Jim Shields             USDA Zone 5             Shields Gardens, Ltd.
P.O. Box 92              WWW:    http://www.shieldsgardens.com/
Westfield, Indiana 46074, USA
Tel. ++1-317-867-3344     or      toll-free 1-866-449-3344 in USA


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