Fifty-eight is 'o paccotto, the parcel or bundle. Italian reference lists give il pacco, l'involto.
English-language lists frequently print 'gift' here, and that is a mistranslation worth flagging. A paccotto is a package, and in Neapolitan idiom a pacco is specifically a swindle — the parcel that turns out to contain bricks. Whatever the square means, it is not a present.
- 58
- 'O paccotto
- the parcel
- Row 51–60 of the tabellone
Where the figure comes from
Undocumented.
Other things filed on 58
In Neapolitan life
Naples has an entire vocabulary for the sale that isn't: pacco, pacchista, tarocco. If the board's parcel carries any of that, it does so silently; the lists record only the object.
58 in the smorfia — frequently asked
No. That gloss appears on some English lists and is wrong. 'O paccotto is a parcel or bundle, and in dialect a pacco can mean a swindle.
No, and this is one of the clearer errors. The Italian says parcel; a good deal of English-language material says gift.