Thirty-nine is 'a funa 'nganna, the rope in the throat. Italian lists render it il cappio al collo, the noose round the neck, and Neapolitan is the blunter of the two.
'Nganna is in canna, in the windpipe, contracted the way the dialect contracts almost everything. The same construction gives 'ncoppa for in coppa, on top, at square 69.
- 39
- 'A funa 'nganna
- the rope round the neck
- Row 31–40 of the tabellone
Where the figure comes from
None given. What can be dated is the continuity: Zezza's 1835 list has Forca, the gallows, on 39. Different word, same square, same idea, a hundred and ninety years apart.
Other things filed on 39
In Neapolitan life
The figure has a second, purely financial sense in Italian: to have the rope round your neck is to be in debt beyond saving. The board rarely distinguishes between a literal image and its idiom, and readers were expected not to need it spelled out.
39 in the smorfia — frequently asked
In the throat — a contraction of in canna. Neapolitan compresses prepositions into the following word as a matter of course.
Zezza's 1835 Naples edition has the gallows on 39, which is close enough to count as the same figure surviving.