TIME quoting Putin

[Victor Steinbok]

  Google Translate got it right IMO: "beat with the cudgel on the head".
Or something like, "club on the noggin", but that mentions the weapon
only indirectly (of course, "club" could be either a verb or a noun here).

It is most certainly NOT truncheon literally, although that appears to
be what was implied with the comment, as the referent was what London
police would do with protesters showing up in a place other than the one
they got a permit for.

There is a subtle difference between "dubina" and "dubinka". The latter
means billy club or truncheon. The former is just a wooden club or
cudgel. It's also like the difference between a night stick and a
baseball bat. And, if we are taking the comments literally, "on" is more
appropriate than "over" or "upside".

Finally, the issue of "head". Indeed, the expression used by Putin was
"b'iut dubinoi po bashke". "Bashka" is the more colloquial, perhaps even
vulgar, expression for "head". Russian folk etymology ascribes it to
Turkic origins--likely accurate, as Turkish for head is "baş" (although
"başka" means something entirely different).

VS-)

On 9/11/2010 5:53 PM, imwitty wrote:
>   Sure, Victor...
>
> Enjoy the bird:
>
> *http://kommersant.ru/doc.aspx?DocsID=1495411
>
> It also has a lot of "golden eggs" for different tastes (;'-)))
> *
> Lora
>> On 9/8/2010 9:53 PM, imwitty wrote:
>>>    Paul,
>>>
>>> You are right: I just found the original interview in the Russian newspaper "Kommersant". I don't know Chinese, but German and Spanish translations are almost correct comparing to the translation provided by "Time" in its "Verbatim" section -- which definitely isn't verbatim.
>>>
>>> I said "almost", because all three translations use the word "head (Kopf, cabeza). Putin actually used "bashka" (the stress on the second "a") like you would use "mug" instead of "face." It is the common parlance equivalent of the Russian word "golova" -- "head" -- (the stress on "a".)
>>>
>>> Probably in this case "head" might be replaced with "bean") Also, I personally would use instead of "truncheon" something like "club", "bat", or "billy club", but I don't work for "Time"... (;'-)))
>>>
>>> Lora

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