Dictionaries on line

[J.Dunn at SLAVONIC.ARTS.GLA.AC.UK]

Colleagues,

I never thought I would write this, but I wonder if we aren't being a bit
unfair to poor old Miuller.  His dictionary was never intended to generate
idiomatic English-Russian equivalents, but to enable Soviet citizens to
read and understand those timeless classics of English-language literature
that figured in the canon as defined for the Soviet Union of the 1950s or
thereabouts.  Since those canonised in this fashion included the odd
American (Theodore Dreiser, if no-one else), I would have thought that at
least some arcane Americana would have been included, but perhaps not.

John Dunn.


>A note to Michael. I am British and have no idea what that expression
>means. I am near retirement age so it clearly is really archaic! I would
>add that as students we had a game called 'know your dictionary', which
>involved catching one's friends out with ridiculous vocabulary taken from
>the dictionary, which included absurd English expressions that none of us
>had ever heard of. (By the way, the game was a disaster for language
>learning, as to this day I have a vocabulary of completely useless words.)
>When I spent a year in the USSR in the early 60s and, I may say, on
>subsequent visits, I was always falling out with Russians who would try out
>allegedly English idioms on me to my bemusement or mirth. Blame the
>dictionary.
>
>Yours
>
>Faith Wigzell
>School of Slavonic and East European Studies,
>University College London
>

John Dunn
Department of Slavonic Studies
Hetherington Building
University of Glasgow
Glasgow
G12 8RS
Great Britain

Telephone (+44) 141 330-5591
Fax       (+44) 141 330-2297
e-mail    J.Dunn at slavonic.arts.gla.ac.uk

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