'kushat'' (& Mayakovsky)

[Igor Silantev]

By the way, there are a lot of proverbs on kushat'/slushat' in
Vladimir Dal's Dictionary:

Tolkovyj slovar' ... Vol.2. KUSHAT': Khleb sol' kushaj, a khoziaina
slushaj. Khleb sol' kushaj, a pravdu slushaj. Chje kushaju, togo i
slushaju. Ne tvoje kushaiu, ne tebia i slushaju. <...> Semero
stojat da slushajut, semero ediat da kushajut (tak!).

Vol.4. SLUKH: Kot i slushaet, da kushaet (sravni sovremennoje: A Vas'ka
slushaet, da est. - I.S.). <...> Est' chto slushat', da nechego
kushat'. <...> Kushaj varenoe, da slushaj govorenoje. <...> Chto
postaviat, to i kushaj, a khoziaina doma slushaj. <...> Vsiakogo
slushat', tak ni v gostiakh, ni doma ne kushat'.

So we can state that XIXth century folklore material gives practically
all the variants of the kushat'/slushat' collation.

________________________________________

Igor Silantev
Novosibirsk State University

Pirogova 11, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia
tel. +7 3832 397451; fax. +7 3832 303011
email silantev at sscadm.nsu.ru
web http://www.nsu.ru/ssc/siv/



Apparently so, but the original version had four lines, the last of which
Mayakovsky altered to change the meaning in an oblique way.  Edward Dumanis'
contribution, several messages back in this substrand, may have gotten lost
in the shuffle:

"I do not know this particular version and whether it has anything to do
with Majakovskij but the version that I know shows the similarity in the
meaning:

 Kogda ja jem
 Ja gluh i nem.
 Kogda ja kushaju
 Ja nikogo ne slushaju.

This rhyme was used to teach children not to speak when eating."

Assuming that this version predates VM's version, if it is indeed his, VM
has exploded a "bourgeois" moralism, if you'll excuse the phrase, by
igniting a class struggle within it, which takes the form of a stylistic
clash between 'est'' and 'kushat'.'  At least that's how I read it.

David Powelstock
d-powelstock at uchicago.edu

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