servera'

[Jules Levin]

I can't help adding a fn. to the servera' discussion.  Regarding "officera'"
which was mentioned early on as a substandard [?] form, this was discussed
by Michael Shapiro, if I'm not mistaken.  The form was apparently a
pejorative used by the "enlisted men", and recorded in the last pre-Soviet,
unfinished Academy Dictionary.  It was omitted from Soviet dictionaries and
presumably suppressed in the spirit of re-establishing officerial authority.
So the -a' plural may signal closeness and familiarity, but not necessarily
warm fuzzies...
PS to John D.   Shame on you!  8-)>




In Message Wed, 15 Nov 1995 06:47:47 -0500,
  John Dingley <jdingley at YorkU.CA> writes:

>James West is quite right in saying that servera' is the form
>which appears to be used in Russia.  I saw it first on the Elvis
>server in Moscow, the URL of which is:
>
>http://www.elvis.msk.su/koi8/home.html
>(you will need to have KOI8 fonts loaded to view this Home Page)
>
>It occurs on the opening page, a little way down, and I quote:
>
>Drugie WWW-servera' Rossii ....
>
>Incidentally, if you read Dean Worth's article, you will see
>that servera' is totally in keeping with his analysis of this
>phenomenon.
>
>John Dingley
Jules Levin
Department of Literatures and Languages
University of California
Riverside, CA  92521