Kotlovan: such'ya zazhimka

[Olga Meerson]

Aleksandr Zinoviev's proverbial Heights has a character whose name (their names are nicknames) is Chlen. The Russian is obvious. The English has always felt to me like that but that might have been a projection (Robert, you have humbled me as to my alleged ability to abstain from linguistic projection). I am glad English speakers find so many precedents and equivalents. As to zazhimat' v kulak, I agree: that is impossible here. As to the no-exit situation--since when in Platonov did a situation when a person was about to disappear forever prevent others from assessing him as a nuisance forever? I don't even know if these labels are then dispelled as wrong or, on the contrary, ontologize the features of the labeled beyond death and the frames of Platonov's literary work. The bitch's cunt (pardon me) also eventually lets the male go, and she may even be abandoned quite soon and forever, without anyone asking who the father is, but when it locks the male in, it feels like foreve
r. So, yes, it is used about a kulak-like greediness--fruitless but deluded into thinking that if holds to things fast enough, they won't go.
o.m. 

----- Original Message -----
From: William Ryan <wfr at SAS.AC.UK>
Date: Monday, January 28, 2008 6:23 am
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Kotlovan: such'ya zazhimka

> Certainly 'member' in this sense is in use outside the field of 
> lexicography - it is an ancient source of double entendre for 
> British 
> comedians, often in the context of  'Members of Parliament'. The 
> Russian 
> equivalent double entendre often involves the Academy of Sciences 
> (e.g. 
> Why are flocks of sheep counted 'po golovam', but the Academy of 
> Sciences  'po chlenam').
> 
> Will Ryan
> 
> 
> Paul B. Gallagher wrote:
> >> Dictionaries notwithstanding, have you ever heard anyone 
> actually use
> >> "member" that way? Can you find anyone outside of the 
> lexicography 
> >> field who is familiar with that sense?
> >>
> >> FWIW, I'm an American, too, living right here in PA.
> >
> 
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