Manners (was Re: GEN.PL of _svecha_ and other such words in Russian)

[L. Douglas Taylor]

>
> Loren Billings wrote:
> >Hom amny other forms like svech have gone to svechej?  Are they linked to
> >stress?
>
> typos apart, i am bemused by the term "calcified expression". I thought
> calcification and sclerosis has something to do with Zamyatin's "My". Are
> there also sclerotic expressions? As for "its not woth the candle", i have
> difficulty figuring out the english meaning, let alone the russian. similar
> to "it takes the biscuit"? As was remarked earlier, not all of us have
> native speaker fluency - whatever that might mean. I know several native
> speakers who are functionally illiterate and incoherent. diachronic
> transition indeed!
>
 Bad manners notwithstanding, I'm amused by the lack of understanding
commonly accepted phrases.  "calcified" is, as far as I know, the standard
expression for a phrase or formation that has become "set in stone", and thus
does not follow the standard formation expectations.

Also, it's amusing trying to figure ANY foreign idiom's meaning when literally
translated.  Consider such amusing expressions as "spitting at the ceiling"
and "that's where the dog is buried" ("being bored" and "the heart of the
matter", respectively).

Now, in regards to the bad manners - didn't your mother teach you not to make
fun of typos?  Some people have better things to do than learn to type -
such things as teaching courses at the lovely FSU.