It has never happened to you to hear “Don’t speak in vain”? It is a strengthening expression deriving from the foundation (that is, which imitates a sound) of the term “vain” and the expression “blah blah blah” or by a crippling of “Fanfera”. It means speaking without reflecting, saying things without meaning or without foundation: it still remains a formula that sounds familiar but that hides a fascinating story, made of linguistic evolutions long centuries.
Today the expression is used to indicate Those who speak without knowledge of the factssuperficially or impulsively, without thinking about it. A person who “speaks in vain” is the one we perceive as little credible, inconclusive, often annoying. But in reality, what does “vary” mean? If you think about it, it’s not a word that we use alone.
We never say: “This is a vain”. It always appears in fixed expressions: “Speaking in vain”, “doing in vain”, “run in vain”. And this immediately makes us think that perhaps It is not a noun like the othersbut one of those words born to strengthen the idea of a bad or meaningless action.
According to what is reported byAccademia della Crusca“Speaking in vain” is documented since the seventeenth century. We find track of it in the proverbs of Francesco Serdonati (Florentine historian and lexicographer), who wrote around 1610. Here is already used with the meaning of “Speaking at random, without foundation, without reflecting”. The most accredited theory for the birth of this somewhat strange word is the one that connects it to one onomatopy: “Vary” would play like an ancient “blah blah”, one word foundused to indicate those who speak without saying anything relevant.
Instead, according to some scholars, “vain” would be one variant of “Fanfera”. The transformation would have occurred due to the spoken language, which tends to change the words over time. In fact, both words have a “noisy” sound, almost trumpets: fan-fan, van-vanperfect for representing a confused chatter.
According to some popular sources, there would be one Curious Venetian history Tied to the end: in the seventeenth century, in the aristocratic courts of the Serenissima, it seems there was a gadget called “vain”, A small tube with a valve, which the ladies brought under the skirts during the receptions to … absorb the embarrassing intestinal noises. In short, a tool to disguise flatulence with a “suffused” sound, which did not create scandal or laughter in the dance halls. From that funny sound produced by this tube the way of saying “speak in vain” would have been born, that is issue air (and sounds) without saying anything relevant. It is a fascinating anecdote, even if historically difficult to demonstrate.
Another hypothesis – less likely but still interesting – is that “vain” derives from “bambàra” or by some Tuscan card games or card gameswhere to act “in vain” meant moving without strategy, blindly. In this sense, the meaning would then extend to the field of language.
