My 2¢ based on the latter part of the conversation: Spageto doesn't seem too bad for use in referring to a single noodle in spaghetti, to me. Especially since "spaghetto" means "cord/string-ette" in Italian. Then again, it's a bit like "and et cetera" and just plain "et cetera", the first is technically a redundant phrase and turns the phrase into dog latin, but it's commonplace anyway so it's not too bad to see (unless you're writing an academic article on the state of Latin phrases in English )