# Can someone tell me how to say "machine elf" in Italian? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 5, 2012, 9:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-tell-me-how-to-say-machine-elf-in-italian/611846 "2012-02-05T09:01:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![brujaja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4af34b/32.png) [@brujaja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brujaja)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2012, 9:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-tell-me-how-to-say-machine-elf-in-italian/611846/1 "2012-02-05T09:01:43Z")
Por favore! ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2012, 9:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-tell-me-how-to-say-machine-elf-in-italian/611846/2 "2012-02-05T09:12:10Z")
What the heck is a “machine elf”? Translators do not translate words, they translate meanings. One can’t give a translation without knowing what the source text means. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2012, 9:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-tell-me-how-to-say-machine-elf-in-italian/611846/3 "2012-02-05T09:16:19Z")
Anyway, elf is _elfo_ and machine is _macchina_. But that’s just translating words one by one, which is not how translations can be properly done. I need the meaning of the phrase as a whole first. Elf is a Teutonic concept which doesn’t really have an exact equivalent in Romance languages, and \*elfo \*is clearly a loanword from a Germanic language, probably English, for when Italians need to talk about it. ---
**Author:** ![brujaja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4af34b/32.png) [@brujaja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brujaja)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2012, 9:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-tell-me-how-to-say-machine-elf-in-italian/611846/4 "2012-02-05T09:33:28Z")
Well, “_folletto_” is more like the meaning of “elf” in this phrase. Here is a short description of “machine elves” by the man who coined the phrase, Terence McKenna: “We especially refer to the apparently autonomous and intelligent, chaotically mercurial and mischievous machine elves encountered in the trance state, strange teachers whose marvelous singing makes intricate toys out of the air and out of their own continually transforming body geometries.” Wikipedia has a page on [machine elves,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_elf) but basically I picture them as like if there were mechanical _folletti._ ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2012, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-tell-me-how-to-say-machine-elf-in-italian/611846/5 "2012-02-05T12:03:36Z")
Without further explanation, I would have thought they were the ghost in the machine, gremlins as defined at the beginning of the movie. Looking at the explanation I don’t think I understand half of it, it’s as if that guy is using “machine” to mean something I would never have thought it to mean. Knowing what do you want the translation for might be useful: are you trying to explain the concept to someone, or is it something else? ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2012, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-tell-me-how-to-say-machine-elf-in-italian/611846/6 "2012-02-05T12:27:11Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Without further explanation, I would have thought they were the ghost in the machine, gremlins as defined at the beginning of the movie. Looking at the explanation I don’t think I understand half of it, it’s as if that guy is using “machine” to mean something I would never have thought it to mean. Knowing what do you want the translation for might be useful: are you trying to explain the concept to someone, or is it something else? I have read reports where users of psychedelic drugs describe a concept of spiders that create reality, or elves that do the same. Some kind of concept like Stephen King’s book The Langoliers. ---
**Author:** ![brujaja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4af34b/32.png) [@brujaja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brujaja)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2012, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-tell-me-how-to-say-machine-elf-in-italian/611846/7 "2012-02-05T15:55:36Z")
Well, **Nava,** I’ve always liked you a lot; so I’ll just come out and say it: I have a shrine, a _lararium_, in keeping with my Neapolitan heritage. I like to speak to my _familiare_ in Italian whenever I can, because it feels right. One of my fondest wishes is to meet one of these machine elves. So, I want to ask for this boon in Italian. That’s the reason. It occurs to me that the “ **game sprite** ” is one concept that contains a roughly similar combination of ideas. And yes, so does the ghost in the machine, sort of. For that matter, so does “Deus ex machina.” Sort of. But the more I think about it, the more I think that possibly “machine elf” has no good translation. Anyone see “The Last Mimsy?” Those spinning whatever they were, were kind of machine-elfey. Goo balls, from “World of Goo,” are a little bit machine-elfey. McKenna described them elsewhere as “self-dribbling jewelled basketballs.” Now who, I ask you, can resist a description like that?! ---
**Author:** ![brujaja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4af34b/32.png) [@brujaja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brujaja)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2012, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-tell-me-how-to-say-machine-elf-in-italian/611846/8 "2012-02-05T16:07:02Z")
Further rumination suggests to me that the reason the word “machine” was chosen is for its various connotations of: shiny, modular, interchangeable parts, inorganic i.e., not squishy meat puppets 🙂 mysterious internal mechanisms, whirring, clicking, and synergistically transforming. Not at all the faceless grinding oppressive cold and antipersonal meaning of “machine.” Very much the opposite – my favorite toy when I was a little girl was a red pegboard that had all these colorful plastic gears; and if you interlocked them right, you could turn one gear and\*\*\* they would all turn!\*\*\* I just love machines. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2012, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-tell-me-how-to-say-machine-elf-in-italian/611846/9 "2012-02-05T17:12:59Z")
Well, then: say _ciao_ to _i folletti meccanichi_ for me. ---
**Author:** ![brujaja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4af34b/32.png) [@brujaja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brujaja)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2012, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-tell-me-how-to-say-machine-elf-in-italian/611846/10 "2012-02-05T17:32:34Z")
**Johanna:** I give you my word, that I will! And thank you, that phrase sounds exactly right. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2012, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-tell-me-how-to-say-machine-elf-in-italian/611846/11 "2012-02-05T17:48:40Z")
> [@brujaja](#): > > Por favore! You’re mixing Spanish and Italian. It’s either _Por favor_ or _Per favore_. ---
**Author:** ![brujaja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4af34b/32.png) [@brujaja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brujaja)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2012, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-tell-me-how-to-say-machine-elf-in-italian/611846/12 "2012-02-05T19:14:49Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > You’re mixing Spanish and Italian. It’s either _Por favor_ or _Per favore_. You’re right! My only excuse is that it was four in the morning … can’t fight ignorance with sloppy prepositions, though. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2012, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-tell-me-how-to-say-machine-elf-in-italian/611846/13 "2012-02-05T19:44:57Z")
As soon as I read the thread title, I thought “Terence McKenna”. I read his _The Archaic Revival_ way back, during my late-eighties _Mondo 2000_ days. The concept seems to revolve around metallic-seeming objects moving, dividing, and recombining fluidly, without the constrained motions that we think of as typical of machines. There were some artists who did algorithmic computer-generated art that has some of the same feel: not mechanical, not organic, but partaking of both, with almost an alien feel. Which makes sense, because the forms were generated through mathematical algorithms: processes different than mechanical fabrication and biological creation, and at the time, unfamiliar to many. [Have a look at some of these images.](http://www.google.ca/search?q=algorithmic+art&hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&hs=rPo&rls=org.mozilla:eo:official&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=u9suT4qvOaqB0QG_n7T0Cg&ved=0CFUQsAQ&biw=1310&bih=864#hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&hs=D58&rls=org.mozilla:eo%3Aofficial&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=3D+algorithmic+art&pbx=1&oq=3D+algorithmic+art&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=3968l5021l0l5511l3l3l0l0l0l0l128l318l1.2l3l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&fp=8c126507c95e6a7f&biw=1310&bih=864) ---
**Author:** ![brujaja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4af34b/32.png) [@brujaja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brujaja)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2012, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-tell-me-how-to-say-machine-elf-in-italian/611846/14 "2012-02-06T01:40:16Z")
Wow, \*\*Sunspace, \*\* several of those are uber-cool. Dammit, I wanna meet a machine elf! Is there such a thing as “elf bait?” ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2012, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-tell-me-how-to-say-machine-elf-in-italian/611846/15 "2012-02-06T18:30:06Z")
> [@brujaja](#): > > Dammit, I wanna meet a machine elf! I’m just gonna keep my distance until you calm down a bit. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2012, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-tell-me-how-to-say-machine-elf-in-italian/611846/16 "2012-02-06T18:47:43Z")
If those elves are actually creating things (not necessarily “making” as an artisan, but their dance and movement generates things), the Spanish would be _espíritu generador_ - there may be something in Italian that’s closer to that.