The Nostra, Martin or La Casa

[Shaggy]

Now WC has Martina Nostra and then there was the Mob which was La Casa Nostra, and then Spyhunter has the Nostra Corporation.
Hmm, recurring theme here.
Does anyone know what the term Nostra means?

 

[Eder]

Hmm, Italian for "our"?

 

[MamiyaOtaru]

I've seen Cosa Nostra translated as "our thing", but I wasn't sure which word is which. Eder would know though

 

[Quarto]

Pretty sure Casa Nostra means 'our house', but as always I reserve the right to be wrong .

 

[Eder]

Not sure about cosa, but I believe casa does mean house, yep.

 

[MamiyaOtaru]

Pretty sure Casa Nostra means 'our house', but as always I reserve the right to be wrong .

That would be correct, but I quite deliberately spelled it with an 'o' It is indeed La Cosa Nostra.

Of course, as far as I know "cosa" in Italian may be the same thing as "casa" in Spanish, so you could still be right hehe

 

[Nomad Terror]

You can use nostra to mean "our thing" in context. Just like nuetra in Spanish

for example, in Spanish, "Este es nuestra." or "This is our thing."

You can relate it to "ours" in English.

This is ours.

It is highly contextual.

 

[Shaggy]

So does Cosa mean Our and Nostra mean Thing?

 

[MamiyaOtaru]

Other way around. The romance languages put the noun first, then any modifiers or adjectives. Where we'd say "The brown rock" they'd say "the rock brown."

Word for word the phrase is "The thing ours." (babelfish just gave me "thing" as the translation of "cosa").

 

[Shaggy]

I was thinking of using the term Nostra for a story I'm working on, but through this I came up with a better term, and it's completely original.
Thanks for the help.