Proverbs

[Timothy D. Sergay]

Dear Olga and SEELANGers,

    In contemporary, nonliterary texts (and even literary), sometimes a
better translation strategy than reaching for an equivalent English proverb
(where sometimes you're lucky, sometimes you're not) is to render the
Russian proverb with an idiom. I think "I volky syty, i ovtsy tsely" is very
close to a very current idiomatic observation in US English "It's a win-win
[situation]" and also to the much older one "And everybody's happy."

Tim Sergay
tsergay at columbus.rr.com

----- Original Message -----
From: "Olga Golovina" <olga at SIU.EDU>
To: <SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU>
Sent: Friday, February 28, 2003 10:19 AM
Subject: [SEELANGS] Proverbs


> Dear SEELANGS,
>
> Are there English proverbs that would match the following Russian proverbs
> in meaning?
>
> "Myagko stelet, da zhestko budet spat' "
> "I volki syty, i ovtsy tsely"
> "Sem' raz otmer', odin raz otrezh' "
>
> Olga Golovina
> Department of Speech Communication
> Southrn Illinois University
> Carbondale, IL. 62901
> olga at siu.edu
>
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