Another monosyllabic base form for PSP

[Dan Goncharoff]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Russian_superheroes

DanG


On Mon, May 7, 2012 at 3:50 PM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Another monosyllabic base form for PSP
>
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> This is actually a nontrivial point. Bernie Madoff's mother, sister and
> wife were not names "Madowa" (although his paternal grandmother might
> have been). Madoff's lawyer is Ira Lee Sorkin and, if he's married, I
> doubt very much his wife's name is Sorkina. Sorkin's partner at his law
> firm is Theodore Elenoff and I also doubt that his wife's name is either
> Elenova or Elenowa. Mitterand's Prime Minister in 1992-3 was Pierre
> Bérégovoy, and his wife was not Mme Beregovaya. Overall, I always found
> it somewhat amusing that famous sports figures from Eastern Europe
> always retained their feminine suffixation (just the tennis players
> alone: Navratilova, Mandlikova, Sukova, Kuznetsova, Azarenka, Safina),
> but none of the women who might have acquired a similar name in the US,
> UK or France (by birth or by marraige) would have the suffix (one of
> several, actually, with differences between Russian, Ukrainian, Polish,
> Czech and Bulgarian, to name the more common sources). The only Western
> European exceptions that I am aware of are German actresses Barbara
> Sukowa and Hanna Schygulla, both of which largely known because of their
> association with Fassbinder. Schygulla, however, was born during WWII in
> what is now a part of Poland, so her family likely spoke Polish. Sukowa
> was born in Bremen in 1950 and is, therefore, the only anomaly (I'm sure
> there are more, but she's likely the best known--certainly, to me). I'm
> not aware of any male bearing a family name with a feminine suffix. Even
> translations of classical Russian literature (say, War and Peace)
> occasionally take liberties and render all names in their male variants.
>
> So, Romanova would have to have direct Russian origin and affiliation.
> Romanov would imply no Russian affiliation
> (aside from ethnic origin). A switch would only make sense from Romanova
> to Romanov, as a means of "westernizing" the name--a plot-induced switch
> in the opposite direction makes no sense. I can't say that I am familiar
> with the strip or the cartoons in great detail or that the film is on my
> "to do" list. So I have no idea what the name is supposed to indicate in
> any of them. It's possible that the 80s switch was a result of an
> editorial decision to make the name sound more exotic or potentially
> villainous/secretive by making it sound more Russian. That's the best
> excuse I can come up with.
>
> Incidentally, I'm not aware of any Russian superheroes. That seems to be
> mostly an Anglo-American (or just American) "thing". It's not that comic
> strips or "graphic novels" were unheard of in Russia until recently, but
> both native and translated stuff mostly followed a Popeye/Inspector
> Gadget-like model (i.e., Asterix, Suske & Wiske, Tin Tin in translation,
> or "original" imitations).
>
>      VS-)
>
> On 5/7/2012 1:52 PM, Jim Parish wrote:
> > On 5/7/2012 12:17 PM, David A. Daniel wrote:
> >> Odd, what worries me about the whole thing is that her name is Romanov
> and
> >> not Romanova, but maybe there's some comic book history here that I'm
> not
> >> aware of (I had never heard of her before seeing the movie). FWIW (very
> >> little) I thought the bat context was fine, in the sense of "just
> batting my
> >> eyes would not have brought you here."
> > When she was first introduced in the comics, back in the '60s, her last
> > name was given as Romanov. At some point - I think it was in the '80s -
> > this was corrected to Romanova. Why the movie should have gone back to
> > the earlier name, I have no idea. (I haven't followed comics since the
> > early '90s; there may be an explanation somewhere in the intervening
> years.)
> >
> > Jim Parish
>
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