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Urbane Guerrilla · 09-26-2005, 05:22 PM

Swearing in Russian can be particularly entertaining to an English speaker. Russian mat' -- and they "yo'-mama" a lot -- seems polarized about thirty degrees left of what English uses. Not only does it sound fierce to those innocent of Russian, it amuses and bemuses those who are students of it. In no small part because the very favorite, indeed utterly hackneyed but still taken as fighting words, interjection that gets used -- well, we end up being unsure of the actual tense of the verb: is it the past tense or the imperative? They sound and are spelled alike, and it takes a bold and specialized reference work to sort the matter. Said works, such as Maledicta, though their scope is global: dirty words in every known language, have even collected specifically Soviet-era cusswords and phrases, the use of which now may be so dated as be classicist.

Most reference works on Russian verbs skip the verb "ebat'" and etymologically-related ones like "abutit'" with predictable results for us non-native speakers. Guess they don't want us sounding as practiced and nuanced as a pissed-off army starshina. We're left rote-remembering "ëb' tvoyu mat'" or downgrading it to just "ëb' tvoyu" leaving the mat' to be readily understood -- good if you're cussing in a hurry, I suppose -- or euphemistically coming up with any pair of words that begin with E and M, and letting him who hath understanding get it. Example: ëlki matalki, which literally means "fir twigs/laths"... It gets weird about the time the swearer starts using diminutive forms of the E-M words -- and Russian can stack one diminutive on top of another until the desired degree of sugary cutesiness is achieved, presumably leaving the woebegone recipient of such phraseology under the impression it is not his morality that is being attacked, but the enamel of his teeth.

09-26-2005, 05:22 PM	#12
Urbane Guerrilla Person who doesn't update the user title Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Southern California Posts: 6,674	Swearing in Russian can be particularly entertaining to an English speaker. Russian mat' -- and they "yo'-mama" a lot -- seems polarized about thirty degrees left of what English uses. Not only does it sound fierce to those innocent of Russian, it amuses and bemuses those who are students of it. In no small part because the very favorite, indeed utterly hackneyed but still taken as fighting words, interjection that gets used -- well, we end up being unsure of the actual tense of the verb: is it the past tense or the imperative? They sound and are spelled alike, and it takes a bold and specialized reference work to sort the matter. Said works, such as Maledicta, though their scope is global: dirty words in every known language, have even collected specifically Soviet-era cusswords and phrases, the use of which now may be so dated as be classicist. Most reference works on Russian verbs skip the verb "ebat'" and etymologically-related ones like "abutit'" with predictable results for us non-native speakers. Guess they don't want us sounding as practiced and nuanced as a pissed-off army starshina. We're left rote-remembering "ëb' tvoyu mat'" or downgrading it to just "ëb' tvoyu" leaving the mat' to be readily understood -- good if you're cussing in a hurry, I suppose -- or euphemistically coming up with any pair of words that begin with E and M, and letting him who hath understanding get it. Example: ëlki matalki, which literally means "fir twigs/laths"... It gets weird about the time the swearer starts using diminutive forms of the E-M words -- and Russian can stack one diminutive on top of another until the desired degree of sugary cutesiness is achieved, presumably leaving the woebegone recipient of such phraseology under the impression it is not his morality that is being attacked, but the enamel of his teeth. __________________ Wanna stop school shootings? End Gun-Free Zones, of course. Last edited by Urbane Guerrilla; 09-26-2005 at 09:29 PM.