Equivalent to "corny"? Any suggestions?

[John Dunn]

I wouldn't disagree with any of this, but if you take Z.E. Aleksandrova's Slovar' sinonimov russkogo jazyka (my copy was published by Sovetskaja entsiklopedija in 1968, but there may be other editions) and look up банальный [banal'nyj], you will be offered seventeen suggestions, several of which may be appropriate.   Curiously, if you look up пошлый [pošlyj], you are offered only вульгарный [vul'garnyj] and a cross-reference to непристойный [nepristojnyj], neither of which is helpful here.

John Dunn.


__, ______________________________________
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list [SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of Alex Shafaremlp [A.Shafarenko at HERTS.AC.UK]
Sent: 26 July 2010 13:15
To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Equivalent to "corny"? Any suggestions?

Although "corny" corresponds to the Russian word "banal'nyj" as in "a corny
movie"
banal'nyj film, translation can hardly ever be word-to-word. There is a very
appropriate Russian word: poshlyj, which is so difficult to render precisely
in English, but which is so very appropriate in the suggested context. I
refer the interested reader to Nabokov's well known example of poshlost' (a
blond lad  swimming daily with two swans in the pond beneath his beloved's
balcony ...) as well as the extensive critical writings on the subject.

Regards,

Alex

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