“Do we play with Lego, with Lego, or with Lego?” Answers to Accademia della Crusca

Lego is an everyday reality, both for those who buy and use them but also for those who don’t have that passion. Hearing Lego immediately brings to mind colorful, stackable bricks, although not all of them bear the LEGO® branding. Which, for this reason, has become the antithesis of these games. But what is the correct expression to say that these bricks are used? On this have already intervened in 2017Accademia della Crusca.

Federico F. from Verona asks us if it is better to use lego, understood not as the name of a well-known company, but as a “collectible set of plastic parts” for men or women – we read on the official website – Alessandra asks us the same question C. From Cagliari, Paolino Z. From Vicenza Province, Mariangela M. From Ancona Province, Cecilia F. From Monza, asks a number question: Depending on the verb to play It is better to use LEGO or LEGO?

As Crusca explains, the name LEGO is an acronym derived from the initial syllables of the two Danish words I hope you get too Or in Italian, “play well”. It is a proper name for a product (marchionimo) which, as it often happens, is also used as a common name and thus with a lowercase letter.

Danish company He writes The LEGO Group is a privately owned and headquartered family business Billund, in Denmark, and that the individual pieces are systematically called “bricks” (Bricks in the English version) or “parts” (parts/pieces), especially when referring to DUPLO, the children’s version of the game; The set of parts included in the package is Designation In Italian too.

The curious thing, for us Italians, is that the term ‘lego’ refers to the verb ‘link’, or ‘put together’ which is what you do with bricks to build something.

From research simply done on the net, it appears that the use of masculine plural It is dominant and in fact brick (but it can also be blocks or bricks used in Italian in the masculine) is a form widely used in relation to individual elements and is probably the form “underlying” this usage, as Crusca asserts.

But so? How do we say?

The academy writes:

in the language you play with LEGO, or with LEGO bricks or with LEGO bricks, But the really important thing is that all kids can keep playing

And we agree, but we add that adults should do it too.

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source: Accademia della Crusca

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