"Blazne!"

[Christopher Lemelin]

Dear SEELANG-ers,

I have a quick question for Czech speakers.  A colleague of mine is  
working on the American author Willa Cather, who, I as I understand  
it, wrote a story called "The Bohemian" (or perhaps the character is  
referred to this way).

In any case, in the story one character says "Blazne!"  I took only a  
year of Czech in grad school and have tried to keep it up a bit  
myself, but expletives aren't the kind of thing I encounter  
frequently.  It's clear to me (perhaps incorrectly) that this comes  
from "blazen," "fool, madman," but my sense is that the expletive has  
broadened semantically (or is much more broadly used)....  I want to  
say that you could translate this as something as common as "Dammit!"

Could someone enlighten me on Czech expletives?  Please reply off- 
list to

lemelinc at dickinson.edu

Děkuji!

CWL

========================
Christopher W. Lemelin
Assistant Professor of Russian
Dickinson College
lemelinc at dickinson.edu

(On sabbatical 2006-2007)





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