For the Russians, tomorrow’s losses are not today’s

• Casualties. “Zelenskyy referred to the losses Russia is reportedly suffering each month, between 20,000 and 25,000 dead and 5,000 wounded,” reports Davide Maria De Luca from Kyiv in Domani. We strongly doubt that the President of Ukraine could have provided such a figure. A ratio of four to five dead for every casualty is highly anomalous and incompatible with all known statistics, in which the number of casualties far exceeds that of the dead. In modern wars, the typical ratio is one dead for every three to five casualties. In Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, it was one death for every four to five wounded. In contemporary high-intensity wars, such as the one between Russia and Ukraine, estimates suggest similar ratios: approximately one death for every 1.5 to 2 wounded. On 18 August 2023, the New York Times calculated, citing military analysts, that Russian casualties were approaching 120,000 dead and 170,000–180,000 wounded. [10 June 2026]

• Trillionaire. “SpaceX, a rocket-fuelled start on Wall Street / Musk makes history: he is the first trillionaire,” reads the headline in La Verità. This is an incorrect term, particularly as Nino Sunseri, in the article below, states that the tycoon has “surpassed the personal trillion mark”. The two terms are inconsistent with one another. Indeed, if one accepts the direct borrowing from the English “trillion” (1,000 billion) used in the text, the correct derivative would, if anything, be “trillionaire”, not “triliardario”. The term adopted by the headline writer attributes to Elon Musk a wealth one billion times greater than his actual wealth. [13 June 2026]

• Brother-in-law. The opening lines of a ‘behind-the-scenes’ piece (as per the byline) by Federico Fubini, deputy editor-in-chief ad personam of Corriere della Sera: ‘They are working to return to Moscow “fairly soon”. Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner – the former a business partner and envoy, the latter Donald Trump’s brother-in-law – are preparing a new mission to the Kremlin”. There must also be a family angle to this. Having married Ivanka Trump, daughter of the President of the United States, until yesterday we believed that Kushner was the White House chief’s son-in-law, not his brother-in-law. [22 May 2026]

• Ramadan. Veronica Gentili, in her column "Facce di casta" in *Il Fatto Quotidiano*, lambasts Roberto Menia, a senator for Fratelli d’Italia, who, at Fiumicino Airport, "saw a gay couple exchanging caresses and displays of affection and lost his mind", uttering the following words: "This is a public place; you cannot do as you please". Gentili comments: “An outburst worthy of an Islamic fundamentalist during the month of Ramadan, when displays of affection in public places are forbidden.” Ramadan has as much to do with it as cabbage at teatime. Although in Islam there is no single moral authority that definitively establishes what is lawful or unlawful, Gentili’s comparison presupposes that the prohibition on public displays of affection is a distinctive feature of Ramadan. In reality, according to the prevailing interpretation of traditional Muslim jurisprudence, public displays of affection between men and women (kisses, caresses, hugs) are considered inappropriate or forbidden regardless of whether it is Ramadan. The month of fasting may entail additional requirements for self-restraint, but it does not introduce a prohibition that would cease to apply during the other 11 months. Sheikh Muhammad ibn Ibrahim (1890–1969), a Saudi and one of the most authoritative Salafi theologians, for example, stated in his fatwas that even kissing one’s wife in front of other people is never permissible. [8 June 2026]

• Buso. “As they say in Veneto, ‘xe pèso il tacòn del buso’, meaning ‘the patch is worse than the hole’,” comments Maurizio Belpietro, editor-in-chief of La Verità, in his front-page editorial. Having been born in Castenedolo (Brescia), a town once under Venetian rule, he ought to know that no self-respecting Venetian would use the Italian definite article ‘il’. In the Serenissima, it has always been said “el tacón” (with an acute accent, not a grave, on the ‘o’). It would be best to refrain from quoting local idioms that one does not fully master. [21 May 2026]

• Holder of multiple degrees. Headline from "Corriere della Sera": “Student travelling to Rome stopped in Gaza by the IDF”. Headline from "La Repubblica": “Engineer from Gaza due to arrive in Italy arrested by the IDF: ‘He is a terrorist’”. Headline from La Stampa: “Gaza: doctor on his way to Rome detained / IDF accuses: ‘He is a Hamas terrorist’”. A terrorist with multiple degrees who has never stopped studying. [4 June 2026]

• ‘They’. Alessandro Sallusti in the column ‘Il pre-giudicato’ in Panorama: “Let’s be clear: for a certain judiciary, and for their mouthpieces in the editorial office, Dell’Utri is not a citizen”. “They” – who? From a strictly grammatical point of view, the closest referent is “a certain section of the judiciary”, a singular noun. It would have been more natural to write: “For a certain section of the judiciary, and for its mouthpieces in the editorial office”. [6 May 2026]

• Disembark. Caption from the Corriere della Sera: “US forces disembark onto an Iranian oil tanker”. Incorrect verb. ‘Disembark’ means ‘to come ashore from a ship’. The photo, however, shows the exact opposite: the soldiers are boarding the ship, abseiling from a helicopter (a technique known as ‘fast-roping’). So they are not ‘landing’, but rather ‘abseiling’. [24 April 2026]

• Fear. A sentence from a report by Francesca Caferri, La Repubblica’s correspondent in Jerusalem: “Words that give rise to fears that, despite Donald Trump having reiterated again yesterday that he expects a response ‘very soon’”. What are they giving rise to fears about? Who knows. [10 May 2026]

• Sibylline. Christian Campigli’s opening lines in “Il Tempo”: “A clear, transparent, sibylline stance”. How a stance can be clear and transparent whilst at the same time being sibylline is a phenomenon comparable to the glacialisation of the Sahara. Perhaps Campigli is unaware of the meaning of ‘sibylline’ as given in the “Zingarelli” 2026: “Obscure, mysterious, enigmatic”. [10 June 2026]

• Port. Article title: “Il mondo capovolto di Belfast e Southampton che da porto vogliono farsi fortezza”. Belfast and Southampton are separated by more than 600 kilometres of land and sea: we were previously unaware that they shared a port. [11 June 2026]