Dead Donkey Ears

[Vladimir Tsourikov]

Barry Popic wrote,
<<<In the WALL STRET JOURNAL EUROPE, 4 October 2000, pg. 1, col. 1, a
Russian declares that his creditors deserve "dead donkey ears."  That is,
nothing.>>>

Well, to begin with, it doesn’t look like it’s worth trying to connect that
phrase to something in English. Myself being a native Russian speaker I can
assure all of you that it’s the phrase of Russian origin. Here’s the basis
for the above-written statement. It appears in a Russian book, considered to
be one of the very few true masterpieces of a classic Russian
satirical/humor prose. The book in the question is “The Twelve Chairs” by
Ilf and Petrov. (For a brief bio of the authors check
www.odessit.com/namegal/english/ilf_petr.htm
<http://www.odessit.com/namegal/english/ilf_petr.htm>  ) It was written in
1928. And the expression “dead donkey’s ears” appears in ch.12. in the
following context (I’ll take a long breath and run into the risk of being
criticized for my own translation):

“
 We’ve also got a vest’s sleeves, the inside of a donut, and a dead donkey
’s ears. Take the whole package wholesale – it’ll be cheaper. And the stuff
aren’t hidden in chairs so you don’t have to rummage for it.”

You won’t find the phrase “dead donkey’s ears” in everybody’s vocabulary
here nowadays, and it’s very unlikely it was at the time of writing the
novel. The authors are very famous for the coinage of many similar phrases,
most of which though ARE in a wide use these days. But even these widely
used phrases of theirs haven’t gone the usual way from an author’s invention
to a general pool of the language idioms. Almost every native Russian
speaker will recognize right away that such-and-such phrase is from The
Twelve Chairs, or The Golden Calf (another work of theirs.) Maybe it happens
because these books are still read almost by everyone, the number and
colorfulness of these coined phrases are still unbeaten by any other Russian
writer, what’s more, there are two different movies based on the novels that
are being rebroadcasted on TV over and over (myself witnessed this happened
at least three times this year.)

Hope it shed some light on your discussion,
An amateur linguist, with his self-taught English, who’s standing in
admiration [almost speechless] before all you big linguistic wheels,
Sincerely, Vladimir Tsourikov.
newvo at selena.kherson.ua
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