goldfishing
n.— «The day I am in the studio, the report on the opposition’s activities features just one politician talking in an interview. But you don’t hear his words. He is, in TV parlance, goldfishing: you can see his lips move but only hear the reporter’s words. The report on Mr Berlusconi’s day has a rather long clip of him speaking.» —“Clown Prince of bloggers takes on Italian politics” by Mark Mardell BBC News Apr. 14, 2008. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Writer Jhumpa Lahiri grew up speaking Bengali and later English, then became passionately devoted to a third language, Italian. Her book In Other Words: A Memoir (Bookshop|Amazon) is a love letter to Italian and a vivid account of the challenges and...
In English, a clumsy persona may be said to have butterfingers, but Italians refer to such a person with a phrase that translates as “having pastry-dough hands.” This is part of a complete episode.
Related