Pryuvet

[Inna Tigountsova]

Dear Vlado,

It is the Volk who changes the spelling to "Priuvet volku," and
I always though that the joke was in the fact that Volk can't spell but
attempts to correct what's written correctly. "IU" is also a letter that
one
normally would not write in a word when in doubt, it would more likely be
"o"-"a", "i" -"E" that would make one (a schoolchild in particular, and
that's a probable audience) think about choosing the correct letter.
"Privet" might look like a word with the prefix "pri-" to Volk, and the
audience half expects the Volk to write a "e" in stead of the "i", but he
doesn't. Volk's mistake just does not make any sense, it's an abstract
mistake that does not seem to have any logic behind it. Volk choses the
most unlikely letter for his "correction", and that's what funny about it.

"Iu" is also a letter with a literary history, i.e. the famous child who
knows letter "iu" in "Moscow-Petushki," "Iu-z" Aleshkovksii, etc. I think
it may be appealing because it is rarely used in the language, but it is a
part of the name for the OCS letter "ius malyi" and "ius bol'shoi", so one
could feel that "iu" is not only rare, unusual, but also "more archaic"
than other letters.

Yours,

Inna Tigountsova
PhD candidate
Dept. of Slavic Languages and
Literatures
University of Toronto

On Fri, 20 Aug 2004, Vladimir Benko wrote:

> Dear SEELangers:
>
> This is a question from my friend:  In one of the "Nu pogodi" series,
> the rabbit has changed the text on a "Privet volku" banner to
> "Pryuvet volku".  Can you please explain what is the essence of this
> apparent joke?  None of the dictionaries has helped us here :-(
>
> Best regards,
>
> Vlado B, 11:15 Danubian Time
>
>
> -----------------------------------------
> Vladimir Benko      <Benko at fedu.uniba.sk>
>
> Comenius University, Faculty of Education
> Moskovska 3, SK-81334 Bratislava
> Tel +421-2-55576744         Fax -55572244
>
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