grass-head

[Paul B. Gallagher]

Vladimir Yaduta wrote:

 > While working on the problem of the Don Cossack dialect translation
 > into English I came across a quite peculiar occurence, attending to
 > the "Virgin Soil upturned" by M.A. Sholokhov.
 >
 > There exists a Cossack word - кужонок / kuzhonok  - a reference to
 > куга зеленая - which is 'about a young, inexperienced man'. It is
 > translated as a grass-head. The context is:
 >
 > - You're too young to teach me, grass-head! I was was a member of the
 > party ... before you'd got your belly button dry...
 >
 > (- Ты, куженок, молодой меня учить и заметки  мне  делать!  У  тебя
 > ишо пупок не просох...)
 >
 > I failed to find this word in a dictionary (grass-head). The only
 > meaning happened to come up - 'a person who smokes marihuana' (Am.
 > slang). But this makes no sense. Perhaps, there are some other
 > meanings of the fabulous "grass-head"?
 >
 > You may respond off list yad at mail.ru or to a group listing.

Sounds to me like whoever offered that translation was trying too hard
to render the Russian and not hard enough to find an English equivalent.

Assuming the explanation is correct (I'm no expert in that dialect), the
first thing that came to mind was "greenhorn," thus:

There's nothing you can teach me, greenhorn! I was was a party member...
when you were still in diapers.

In a sports context, I might try "rook" (short for "rookie").

--
War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left.
--
Paul B. Gallagher
pbg translations, inc.
"Russian Translations That Read Like Originals"
http://pbg-translations.com

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