Eighty is 'a vocca, the mouth. Neapolitan softens an initial b to a v, which is why bocca becomes vocca and bacio becomes vaso.
That second change explains something several squares back: the clay pot at 7 is 'o vasetto, and vaso in Neapolitan means both a vessel and a kiss. The board is full of these quiet collisions.
- 80
- 'A vocca
- the mouth
- Row 71–80 of the tabellone
Where the figure comes from
Unrecorded.
Other things filed on 80
In Neapolitan life
Sicily uses 80 for the female genitals outright, with no euphemism at all, where Naples files the same territory at 6 behind a riddle. Comparing the two boards is the fastest way to see that neither tradition is more decorous than the other; they simply disagree about which squares to be blunt on.
80 in the smorfia — frequently asked
Neapolitan turns an initial b into a v. The same rule gives vaso for bacio, a kiss.
The lists give no metaphor for it, unusually. Where the board means something else it normally says so in the gloss.