Date:  Tue, 1 Jul 1997 16:53:59 -0700
From:  Peter Farruggio <pfarr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UCLINK4.BERKELEY.EDU>
Subject: Re: Agita

I have no academic background in Italian language...just learned Southern
dialect at home...Agita is a noun and means "upset stomach" usually
provoked by stress. I don't know if this jibes with a dictionary, but it's
how the speakers use it...Don't think there is any derivation from the
participle

Pete Farruggio


>For a newspaper column, I am trying to trace the word "agita" in English.
>It is absent from most dictionaries, both standard and slang, and Anne
>Soukhanov, in her "Word Watch," notes 1982 as an "early" citation, which
>seems awfully late to me. Does anyone have anything earlier, or a sense of
>how the Italian "agitato" became "agita"?
>
>Thanks,
>Evan
>--
>Evan Morris
>words1[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]well.com