V goode Berdicheve: babies' clothing
Deborah Hoffman
lino59 at AMERITECH.NET
Thu Jul 9 03:54:01 UTC 2009
Perhaps because those needed for a newborn will be so much smaller than those needed later on? i.e. "toylike"
(well, not literally, perhaps hyperbolically)
Deborah Hoffman, Esq.
Modern and Classical Language Studies
Vice-Chair, Graduate Student Senate
Kent State University
http://www.linkedin.com/in/deborahhoffman
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Wednesday, July 8, 2009 4:37 PM
From:
"Robert Chandler" <kcf19 at DIAL.PIPEX.COM>
To:
undisclosed-recipients
Dear all,
This story is set in Berdichev during the Russian-Polish war. A tall,
strong, determined female commissar has become pregnant and has finally had
to accept that she can’t carry on as usual. She has been billeted on a
Jewish family. The wife is trying to teach her a bit about what being a
mother will be like.
Вернувшийся вечером с работы Магазаник ошеломленно остановился в
дверях: за столом сидела его жена Бэйла и рядом с ней большая женщина в
просторном платье, в туфлях-шлепанцах на босу ногy, с головой, повязанной
пестрой косынкой. Они негромко смеялись, переговариваясь между собой, и
примеряли, подымая большие толстые руки, маленькие, игрушечные распашонки
My dictionary translates ‘raspashonka’ as ‘a short baby’s undershirt without
buttons’. But why is it also ‘igrushechnaya’? Is that simply a way of
saying it is very small? The French translator evidently thinks it means
something like an item of clothing for a doll, but I don’t think that makes
much sense.
More generally, I am a bit puzzled as to why they are measuring clothes for
a baby that has yet to be born.
All the best,
Robert
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