Fifty is 'o ppane, bread. The doubled pp marks the Neapolitan neuter, the gender the dialect keeps for substances: bread as a material, not a loaf.
It sits exactly halfway across the board, which is the sort of thing people notice afterwards and then explain.
- 50
- 'O ppane
- bread
- Row 41–50 of the tabellone
Where the figure comes from
No source, and the square has moved. Zezza's 1835 Naples smorfia has Acqua verde, green water, at 50 — an image nobody now uses. Bread arrived later and displaced it.
Other things filed on 50
In Neapolitan life
The Sicilian board puts bread at 53 and a fish trap at 50. Between the two lists, the staple foods rarely land on the same square, which suggests the figures were fixed locally rather than inherited from a common original.
50 in the smorfia — frequently asked
The doubled consonant marks the Neapolitan neuter, used for mass nouns. It is the same rule as 'o ccafè at 42.
No. The 1835 Naples edition has green water there. The square changed hands at some point in the following century.