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Luck, prizes and «in bocca al lupo»
Before an exam, a performance or a prize, Italians say in bocca al lupo — «into the wolf's mouth». The traditional answer is crepi (il lupo), «may the wolf die»; answering grazie is considered bad luck by the superstitious. Some people now prefer evviva il lupo, out of sympathy for wolves. Superstition around luck has its own vocabulary: essere scaramantico (to avoid anything that might bring bad luck), gufare (to jinx, from gufo, the owl, a bird of ill omen), toccare ferro (to touch iron, the Italian equivalent of knocking on wood). Several prizes in the English-speaking world reward literary translation, some of them specifically for translation from Italian. Shortlists are usually announced weeks before the ceremony, which gives finalists plenty of time to write two speeches.