

Hai ascoltato l’ultimo album di Nino D’Angelo? To be honest, I don’t really care about it. Notably, the speaker must place the appropriate personal pronoun particles (‘ me’, ‘ te’, ‘ se’, ‘ ce’, ‘ ve’, ‘ se’) and the pronoun ‘ ne’ (meaning ‘of it’) before the verb ‘ fregare’, which, as in all applicable cases, must be conjugated according to to its subject. However, this peculiar usage of the verb requires an equally peculiar construction. In Italy, the president is the head of state In Italia il presidente è il capo di stato

It doesn't matter if you're the head of the department Non importa se sei il capo del dipartimento And capo is also sometimes used to high-ranking mafia members, as a shortening of capodecina, which literally means 'head of ten'. In commonly used phrases, sometimes it forms compound nouns: redattore capo and caporedattore are two ways of saying 'editor in chief' while capoluogo (literally 'head place') refers to capital cities or towns of a region. When used on its own, it translates as 'boss', but you can also use it as part of a phrase such as il capo di stato (the head of state) or il capo del dipartimento (the head of the department). Usually though, capo usually refers to a person in modern Italian. However, capo still pops up in a few frequently heard set phrases, such as da capo a piedi (from head to toe, or literally 'head to feet'). In some Italian dialects, capo is still used to mean 'head', but more commonly you'll hear testa (which originally comes from a Latin word meaning 'pot').

It comes from the Latin word caput, which meant 'head' in the anatomical sense and in a few figurative senses too (for example, the leader of a group, or the origin of a river).
