TIME quoting Putin

[imwitty]

I'm glad we are on the same page regarding the translation.

I didn't have ANY intention to offer you a lecture on Russian. I just
commented on the issues mentioned in your message.

Any details I offered were for clarification ONLY (i.e. Vladimir Dal's
Dictionary mentions Tatar -- which does belong to the Turkic group of
languages as the Turkish itself, but Russia has been invaded by Tatars and
Mongols, not by Turks, so I consider this comment as relevant.) I mentioned
other meaning of the word "dubina" and other use of this "tool" with a
solely intention to stress that the word and the object it defines are/were
applied not just to the weapon.

As for the Putin's deliberate metaphorical use of the word "dubina" -- yes,
but he (as always) did mean its smaller "modernized" sister... This
situation reminds me one of the brilliant *fraszkąs (*aphorisms*)* of the
late Stanislaw Jerzy Lec: "Bottom is bottom, even if it is turned upside
down."

HTH,

Lora
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On Sun, Sep 12, 2010 at 1:07 AM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: TIME quoting Putin
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>  Comments interspersed...
>
> On 9/12/2010 1:02 AM, imwitty wrote:
> > I like better the combination "beat with the billy club (or night
> > stick) on the noggin"...
>
> Well, we agree on the "noggin".
>
> > The difference between "dubina" and "dubinka" is not so subtle as it
> > seems: former is much bigger than latter and besides the former was
> > used not just as a primitive weapon, but also as a tool (lever, etc.)
> > "Dubina" has also second (and very popular since old times and until
> > today) meaning: it's a (very often used) definition of the extremely
> > dull/stupid person.
>
> I was going to mention the latter in my post, but then thought better of
> it since it was not really relevant. And it is absolutely clear that the
> quoted Putin statement has no relation to the "second (very popular)
> meaning". But he did use "dubina" quite unambiguously:
>
> > Где нельзя, бьют дубиной по башке.
>
> So why all this charade? Yes, the context suggests that he /meant/
> "dubinka", but that is not what he said. And the goal of the
> translation, in this case, is to know what he said, not what he was
> supposedly implying.
>
> > Putin definitely means "dubinka" (since their OMON units
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OMON do use "dubinka" similar to the
> > billy club (see http://www.vokrugsveta.ru/telegraph/technics/551/ for
> > the history of this "democratizator" worldwide and in Russia.)
>
> Again, this is all background stuff on the issue, but it does nothing
> for the actual translation.
>
> > The word "bashka" *NEVER* was considered vulgar, just a common
> > parlance, even in the old times. Probably, it wasn't used very often
> > by the old Russian aristocracy at the high level receptions, but
> > otherwise...
>
> I mean "vulgar" in more Latin sense, not that it was something to be
> censored. In this case, "vulgar" was short for "common slang".
>
> > It does have Turkic origins ("bash" in Tatar means "head"; "bashka"
> > means in Tatar "other" or "another", according to the famous Vladimir
> > Dal's dictionary, but in the old Russian sayings they are used
> > sometimes as equivalent terms (i.e. in the idiom "bash na bash" -- "an
> > equivalent exchange".)
>
> I think, we are in agreement concerning the origin. I did cite Turkish
> because it is a more readily available language than Tatar. And both
> "bash" and "bashka" have a similar meaning in Turkish to the ones in Tatar.
>
> > Besides -- as any other language I know, including English -- Russian
> > "assimilates" foreign words creatively, transforming them to be more
> > "fit": Russian suffix -k- is one of the often used for different
> purposes.
>
> To be honest, I really don't need a lecture on Russian. Or is it "I
> don't really need"? ... It doesn't matter. And we're talking about 800
> years of assimilation here--there have been plenty of opportunities for
> "creatively transforming".
>
> But, after all this, I actually suspect that Putin might have
> deliberately said "dubinoi" rather than "dubinkoi". The weapon, in this
> case, is more metaphorical than real. Which is why he follows it up with
> another metaphor: "Poluchi, teby otovarili." The closest English
> equivalent I can think of is "You get what you pay for".
>
> VS-)
>
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