grass-head

[Andrew Jameson]

Mirtov, Donskoi slovar' 1929 pp. 130 and 158.
Kamysh: The plant known in central Russia as
kamysh is called by the Cossacks kuga.
Kuga: 1. Bolotnaya trava, scirpus lacustris
2. Kugoi - starye kazaki nazyvayut molodykh kazakov.
"Zhidkovat ty byl, kuga zelenaya, suprotiv menya"
(Tikhii Don, 243.)
Kuzhonok: tak v nasmeshku nazyvayut v polkakh
vnov' pribyvshikh molodykh kazakov.
(Refs and examples given)

Andrew Jameson
Lancaster UK

----- Original Message -----
From: "Yaduta Vladimir" <yad1982 at MAIL.RU>
To: <SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU>
Sent: Monday, March 15, 2004 7:57 AM
Subject: [SEELANGS] grass-head


Dear SEELANGers,

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.

Sincerely,
  Vladimir Yaduta

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