> Re: [SEELANGS] > [SEELANGS] Russian expression

Sarah Hurst sarahhurst at ALASKA.NET
Sun Mar 16 19:01:50 UTC 2008 

Thank you for all the suggestions. Unfortunately there is no more context to explain what specifically was meant, so I think the speaker was just being vague and I need to keep it vague in the translation too.

Sarah Hurst

-----Original Message-----
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list [mailto:SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of John Langran
Sent: Sunday, March 16, 2008 9:23 AM
To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] > Re: [SEELANGS] > [SEELANGS] Russian expression

I asked a friend who served for 25 years in the Russian military. His 
translation

"They (or we) worked so hard delivering all this during the night, that we / 
they were too tired to eat / couldn't face the breakfast kasha".

With the notes that
1. Very often things were unloaded / delivered at night because they were 
secret.
2. The kasha was served very often, all were fed up with it, and it was 
often dry and difficult to eat even if you weren't tired. People used to 
joke:
Khochesh kasha
Da dva kuska!


John Langran
www.ruslan.co.uk


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Patricia Chaput" <chaput at FAS.HARVARD.EDU>
To: <SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu>
Sent: Sunday, March 16, 2008 3:32 PM
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] > Re: [SEELANGS] > [SEELANGS] Russian expression


> Perhaps a trivial addition:  as to svernutaya kasha, I think we would say 
> congealed (coagulated), so that it is so sticky (gluteny) that it can be 
> hard to eat without a lot of liquid to stir into it and stirring to break 
> it  down into smaller lumps. So while it can be eaten, it  is hard to get 
> down.  I  think the cold kasha is being described as inedible (for anyone 
> with a choice).
>
> Pat Chaput
> Slavic Dept.
> Harvard U.
>
> On 3/16/08 10:41 AM, Ashot Vardanyan wrote:
>> I agree -- it's highly unlikely, and we'd better know more context, at 
>> least the paragraph in which the sentence is used. However, re: sleeping 
>> vs eating, I remember my father telling me that sometimes their only 
>> dream was to get just a little sleep. He was in the infantry in the war. 
>> But I remember my military experience of the early 80s as well: 
>> sometimes, after the march we were really unable to eat the cold 
>> svyornutuyu (I couldn't find the English word for that) kasha...
>>
>> Yes, we do need more context.
>>
>> Ashot
>>
>> 03/16 14:31 Robert Chandler <kcf19 at DIAL.PIPEX.COM> wrote:
>>
>>>It's highly unlikely that hungry soldiers would have refused food simply
>>>because it was poor quality.  Really we need a lot more context to
>>>make
>>>sense of this.
>>>
>>>R.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>My guess is there could be two explanations: either the quality
>>>
>>>of the meals
>>>
>>>>was bad -- cold, vapid, hard, etc., or the soldiers were so
>>>
>>>tired after a
>>>
>>>>battle, march, etc., that they were unable to wake up and eat
>>>
>>>anything.
>>>
>>>> I would translate this sentence so:
>>>>
>>>>"Since sll this [the food] was delivered in the night / at
>>>
>>>night, the soldiers
>>>
>>>>couldn't eat the porridge if they tried."
>>>>
>>>>Ashot Vardanyan,
>>>>University of Iowa
>>>> 03/15 23:45 Sarah Hurst <sarahhurst at ALASKA.NET> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>Can anyone assist me with translating the following phrase,
>>>
>>>which describes
>>>
>>>>>conditions at the front during WWII:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>‰œ”‘¡◊×Å ‹‘œ ◊”£ Œœfiÿ¿,
>>>
>>>‘¡À fi‘œ À¡€¡ … ◊ “œ‘ Œ≈ Ã≈⁄á.
>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>He's saying the food was delivered at night, so did the
>>>
>>>kasha not
>>>
>>>>>even make
>>>>>it into the soldiers' mouths, and if not, what is he
>>>
>>>implying,
>>>
>>>>>perhaps it
>>>>>was bad by the time they woke up, or does he mean they
>>>
>>>gulped the
>>>
>>>>>kasha down
>>>>>quickly, or something else?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>Sarah Hurst
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>No virus found in this outgoing message.
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>>>
>>>Date:
>>>
>>>>>3/15/2008
>>>>>2:36 PM
>>>>>
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