Almost every major disaster seems to have its heroes and its villains.  The Costa Concordia disaster off Isola di Giglio has made Captain Francesco Schettino a villain for allegedly abandoning his ship and Livorno Port Authority Commander Falco a hero for ordering Schettino to return to his ship and to organize its evacuation.

Commander Falco’s repeated orders, transmitted via radio, seem to have been ignored by Captain Schettino, leading an exasperated Falco to exclaim: “Vada a bordo, cazzo!” Millions of people worldwide have now listened to this exchange on La Repubblica, the Telegraph, YouTube, and other media outlets.

The phrase “Vada a bordo, Cazzo!” has gone viral and is now celebrated in Italy and elsewhere with T-shirts.

I suppose that it was inevitable that a mass tourism disaster would have to have a response through global commercialization.

The phrase “Vada a bordo, cazzo!” literally means “Get back on board, dick!”  But, “cazzo” is a much used expletive in Italian that is used to express frustration, much as “shit” is used in English.  So, I would argue that Falco was not calling the captain a “cazzo”, but rather using “cazzo” as a non-personal expletive here.

The Telegraph reports on the phrase and the T-shirts in circulation.