The expression “Fritz friend”Indicates a person we don’t completely trust thatwhat we call such an ironic way, only apparently friendlywhose intentions actually suspect. To understand the origins of this way of saying We have to go back until 1891, the year in which the operetta is published The Fritz friendin turn based on a novel (The Ami Fritz Of Émile Erckmann and Alexandre Charrian), Of Pietro MascagniItalian composer famous for Rustic cavalry.
In the work, Fritz looks like a kind, good -natured man, bachelor, who refuses the idea of marriage, but that In the end he gives in to love for Suzela young man. He is a character contrary to too tight social ties, but far from duplicate or ambiguous. In Italy, however, the expression has undergone a transformation: from simple reference to the disinterested friendship of Fritz, it has passed to indicate an ostentatious, false friendship, which, however, can conceal Fini seconds. The semantic change of the name continued until it reaches the Before and the Second World Warin which the Italians, alongside the already known “Crucchi”, began to call the German soldiers in a colloquial way “Fritz”, as well as the British called their infantrymen “Tommy”.
In a troubled Italy, first by the wars and then by the German occupation, “Friend friend” he became A sarcastic way to refer to the Germanswhich were formally “allies” (especially during the Rome-Berlin axis), but in the facts they were perceived as arrogant, overbearing and dominators; reason why he assumed an implication of distrust, duplicity And false friendship, which has come down to us. In the same way, we use “Fritz friend” when in a conversation we want to talk about Someone known to all without calling it by name; generally someone whose presence is cumbersome and annoying And you don’t even want to name, or an ambiguous and unclear person, who does not never openly declares their purposes. An extraordinary example of how popular culture, theater, literature and geopolitics intertwine with the creation of ways of saying.
