LAUSR

Dear Editor, The English language is now considered the most spoken language in the world, after the Mandarin Chinese language. Several English words and expressions are commonly used during informal conversation, in newspapers, in television programs, and in social networks. The English language is also the official scientific language, particularly for the medical sciences, and even the official Journal of the Italian Society of Neurology is published in English. In Italy, the knowledge of English is considered important for a neurologist’s career. Consequently, some prestigious Italian Universities offer the option of a full curriculum in English to medical students. Nevertheless, the demand for demonstrated cognizance of English may have, however, some disadvantages. For example, during National Neurological Congresses and Meetings, Italian speakers (probably including us!) make several mistakes due to several different reasons. The most common mistake is the use of a word or expression that has a similar sound or spelling to another word or expression in a different native language. This occurrence is often referred to as Bfalse friends^. For purposes of clarity, a few of the most common examples are indicated in Table 1. In other instances, there may be a tendency to use words or expressions which have an English origin but do not exist in Italian. Table 2 shows some example. We know that there is no Italian equivalent for many English words, and in other cases, many English expressions have replaced Italian words. However, we, Italian speakers,