Quote Originally Posted by Vito View Post
Yup, linguine means little tongues, from lingua. Tagliatelle must come from from tagliare, meaning to cut, or tagliato, its past participle. I'm not sure. Fettuccine means little ribbons, from fettuccia (I had to look this one up. Never knew that.) Ravioli I don't know about. I looked it up, bit there seems to be some disagreement about its origin. And fusilli might come from an old or dialectic form of fucile, which means rifle in modern Italian. This makes sense, because fusilli is rifled, I think. One pasta I don't find particularly appealing because of its name is vermicelli, or little worms. Yuk. I'm no expert on Italian foods, but I think these answers are correct.
Vito, you're right on target on fusilli... Rifled. Rifle, as opposed to earlier musket, has spiral grooves down the barrel that bullet a spin, flying straighter. Thus fusilli is spiraled pasta, and exists in our language in such words as "fusillade". "Ravioli" for sure seems a tough one... let's just wrap that one up as confused etymology. "Vermicelli", yes, worms, at their peak point often wrigglin'. Then someone re-named them "Angel Hair pasta", and took away the fun of the sqigglin'. Though, vermicelli, cut fresh from the pasta machine, lets our mouth join with angels in transport to heaven.