Words of the school: sex, viciniore (and viciniorità)

Abstract

This paper examines a set of words used in the Italian school environment: sex (Latin numeral often used in school reports as a substitute for sei ‘six’ so that the evaluation cannot be altered), viciniore (indicating an institution or municipality falling within the same province) and its derivative viciniorità (with the anomalous variant viciniorietà). A presentation of the data concerning the chronology and diffusion of these words is followed by an investigation into their origins, semantic implications, relationships with Italian lexicography and finally, in the case of competing variants (such as viciniorità and viciniorietà), the degree of compliance with the rules of word formation in Italian.