Italianisms in US English: past and present

In sailing across the Atlantic and finding a new world, an Italian had in one sense inaugurated ‘modern times’, and deprived the Mediterranean of its central position in the world. But much earlier, in the fifteenth century, Italy could claim to have given birth to ‘modern times’ in several other senses. This essay looks at the quantity and quality of Italian borrowings in US English by means of a lexicographic research.