discourse words

[Renee Stillings]

Perhaps it is just my personal impression, but the more I hear "v principe"
used in Russia, the more I cringe. The reason - it signals to me the main
thing as an employer in Russia I want to pull my hair out about - lack of
commitment or taking of responsibility. Now it is normal for everyone to do
that to some degree and other examples like "evidently" or "allegedly" are
also very lazy words. These were examples we also discussed in technical
writing as signaling lack of effort in providing any evidence or reference
for the statement being made, and completely weakening the whole case. But
that is probably individual laziness. What strikes me about the overuse of
"v principe" is that is has some historical/cultural context in lack of
individual responsibility and over-reliance on sudba, the state, or other
intangibles. In that context, I am not exactly sure how to translate the
full flavor of the word ... . It is just a word I want to go away when an
employee is trying to tell me whether they will meet a deadline or not or if
they are offering an opinion to a client. Arghhhh.

Is this just my impression or are there any studies reflecting on the
connection between these words and the historical/cultural background from
which they may have gained such popularity? 

Definitely though, the ability to use these words is a major leap in mastery
of the language. I remember noting when I started littering the language
with these expressions, suddenly feeling confident (maybe with some added
humor) in injecting "zhe" multiple times in one sentence! One funny thing of
course is that you pick up these words from the people you keep company
with. We had one guy in our office who had a few funny crutch words. He was
such a strong personality though that even years after he left you could
still detect the increased use of those particular words among those he
worked with. As foreigners we are even more susceptible and if we are at
that point in our language learning, we rapidly pick up the speech patterns
- good and bad - of our close friends.	

Quoting AI:
In my translation class I actually teach the meaning of some of those  
words, like v principe, for example, and how to translate them into  
English. Learning to use them in a foreign language is a lot harder.  
This is a true sign of mastery of the language.

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