help with Ukrainian saying

[Paul B. Gallagher]

George Hawrysch wrote:

>> for "v ogorode buzina, a v Kieve dyad'ka," Lubensky gives:
>> "[saying] there is no logical connection between the various things
>> s.o. is saying: ~ you're mixing apples and oranges."
> 
> The "no logical connection" is accurate; the suggested English
> equivalent is not.
> 
> Maybe the problem is understanding the English. The whole point of
> the expression "apples and oranges" is that they ARE like one another
> -- both are fruit, similar in shape and size, some languages use very
> similar words for both -- while at the same time they are NOT like
> one another. The phrase means, "Don't mistake similar for identical" 
> in English.

That may be superficially true, but it's not how I understand the 
function of the English saying. Rather, to me it means that the previous 
speaker is being chided for an improper or unfair comparison; the two 
classes of things cannot be compared because they are so different. 
There may or may not be similarities, but that's beside the point; what 
matters is their essential difference that makes similar treatment 
impossible or inappropriate.

There's a line near the end of an episode of /The West Wing/, titled 
"Noel," that illustrates this point. Josh Lyman (Bradley Whitford) was 
shot in a previous episode, and after his release from the hospital, 
he's been slowly coming unglued as he privately fights his reaction to 
the event. In the present episode, he's being counseled, and counselor 
Stanley Keyworth (Adam Arkin) ends the session with this exchange:

STANLEY -- Usually with a gunshot victim it's a car backfiring, or a 
twig snapping, but that's not what it was with you.

JOSH -- What was it?

STANLEY -- [turns to Kaytha] Kaytha?

KAYTHA -- The music.

STANLEY -- The brass quintet.

JOSH -- Why would the music have started it?

STANLEY -- Well, I know it's gonna sound like I'm telling you that two 
plus two equals a bushel of potatoes, but at this moment, in your head, 
music is the same thing as...

JOSH -- ...as sirens.

STANLEY -- [nods] Yeah. [puts on his coat]

JOSH -- So that's gonna be my reaction every time I hear music?

STANLEY -- No.

JOSH -- Why not?

STANLEY -- Because we get better. [starts to leave]

Script: <http://communicationsoffice.tripod.com/2-10.txt>

To my mind, THAT -- "two plus two equals a bushel of potatoes" -- is an 
apples-and-oranges comparison.

> "V ogorode..." doesn't refer to similar things, it points out that
> two things have nothing in common at all. The phrase means, "...pri
> chom zdes'...?" in Russian.
> 
> If I say, "Microsoft should be broken up because AT&T was broken up
> to good effect" -- that's "Apples and oranges."

That might work, if the point is to say that Microsoft and AT&T are so 
different that the same treatment cannot apply to both.

-- 
War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left.
--
Paul B. Gallagher
pbg translations, inc.
"Russian Translations That Read Like Originals"
http://pbg-translations.com

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