Considering the fact that Snooki’s skin tone looks more Oompa Loompa than orange and Pauly D refers to a panino as a “sangwich,” many have doubted the Jersey Shore cast’s claims to their Italian heritage. But for season four, which premieres on Thursday, Snooki, Pauly D, JWoww, Vinny, The Situation, Ronnie, Sammi, and last season’s added meatball, Deena, head to Italy, where their “fresh to death” fist-pumping is rather alien to the natives.
During Jersey Shore’s first season, the world was exposed to some of the guidos’ ritual dance moves, including their second-favorite fist dance, “beating up the beat,” in which they pound on the dance floor of a nightclub in a circle of friends and slowly rise up to a full standing position. “Italian men would NEVER, and I mean NEVER, dance together and bang their fists on the floor,” one fluent speaker told The Daily Beast via email.
“I’m nervous, I’m not gonna lie,” Pauly D admitted to MTV before heading to the motherland. “I don’t know what gyms are like over there, I don’t know what tanning’s like, I don’t know the food, and the language—I don’t even speak Italian. Maybe I should get a Rosetta Stone or something.”
Whether or not the gel-hoarding DJ bought the language software remains to be seen. But Pauly D also expressed concern to MTV about hitting on “real Italian women.” Matters of the opposite sex are a bit different in Florence, where romance is held in the highest esteem. Upon hearing about “girl code” and “guy code”—the Jersey Shore cast’s rules that friendship should be put above relationships in all situations, i.e., the “chicks before dicks” or “bros before hoes” mentality—another fluent Italian speaker said, “The concept is unknown to me … Shouldn’t the rule be reversed?”
It seems Pauly D is right to be worried. “I don’t know how I’m going to talk with them,” he added to MTV. “I’m hoping the smile does the trick. The less words the better.”
So here are some—in both Jerseyan and Italian slang—to get him, the rest of the cast, and viewers started.
