query about a phrase

[Alina Israeli]

I would not want it to be called "reduplication", although in  
rhetoric we do find similar examples of semantic repetition. The  
Google search of "труба кранты" yielded 4 hits. On the other hand  
"дело труба"  produced 46,700, "ему кранты" over 1,200, the same for  
"нам кранты". In other words the two words are not that often  
connected compared to their individual usages.

What is interesting here is that both of these nouns are used only as  
predicates as in the above examples to produce the meaning of the  
doom. There are other such fun phrases: "дело табак" 43,200, and  
simply "дело швах" 14,400. While schwach is rather straightforward,  
"tabac" is puzzling, because to my knowledge it is associated with a  
lot of positive expressions in French.

The list of words meaning 'end' or 'doom' could be vastly expanded  
(каюк, капут, крышка...)

This reminds me of the story told by Tomas Venclova that once after  
some drinking he and Dovlatov started a list of synonyms of the words  
meaning 'to get drunk'. When they got to #100 they simply stopped. I  
wonder if anyone has such a list.  The situation with doomsday seems  
to be just as fruitful.


On Jul 6, 2007, at 7:25 AM, William Ryan wrote:

> In view of the silence from Russian colleagues, I offer this. Not  
> so much a phrase as a reduplication, roughly the first word means  
> an impossible situation, the second means kaput. Listed in slang  
> dictionaries, e.g. Slovar' tiuremnogo-lagerno-blatnogo zhargona, M.  
> 1992. Steve Marder's Supplementary Dictionary (Slavica) lists kranty.
> Will Ryan
>
> Sarah Hurst wrote:
>> Can anyone explain to me the phrase: "труба, кранты!"? I think it  
>> means a
>> situation is hopeless, but I'd be grateful for any help.
>>

Alina Israeli
LFS, American University
4400 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington DC. 20016
(202) 885-2387 	
fax (202) 885-1076
aisrael at american.edu




-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------