more about opera: smotret' or slushat'?

[Alina Israeli]

>1) Do other native Russian speakers use "smotret' operu," or "slushat'
>operu," when referring to live (not recorded) performance?

A quick search on Google:

slushali operu (in cyrillic) - 323 pages

smotreli operu (same way) - 933 pages


>On another note: are native Russian speakers really starting to
>"neuterize" the
>word kofe? How common is this?

They started it a very long time ago, let's say, over 40 years ago for sure.

It reminds me of a joke when a linguist was standing by a kiosk counting
how many people asked for one coffee as "odno kofe" and how many as "odin
kofe". He was elated when finally someone asked "odin kofe" but it was
followed by "... i odin bulochka".

The gender of "kofe" together with the stress in "zvonit" was one of the
pet peeves of the purists (for over a hundred years). If not for that the
gender would have changed long ago. No one is bothered that "pal'to" is
neuter (and not masculine any more) or that "voron ni zharjat ni varjat" is
no longer end-stressed (outside this rhyme).

__________________________
 Alina Israeli
 LFS, American University
 4400 Mass. Ave., NW
 Washington, DC 20016

 phone:    (202) 885-2387
 fax:      (202) 885-1076 

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