Archive for April, 2013
Eat me! Drink me! Off with his head! Posted by Rob on Apr 26, 2013
As we all know, shortly after the inquisitive Alice falls вниз по кроличьей норе, she discovers a little glass table with a tiny golden key on top of it, along with an enticing bottle of something that turns out to be shrinking potion: К бутылке была привязана бумажка, а на бумажке крупными красивыми буквами…
I get knocked down, but I get up again… Posted by Rob on Apr 24, 2013
In last week’s post, I mistakenly used the verb сваливать/свалить with the meaning “to physically knock down” — which seemed logical to me because, after all, the root verb валить means “to topple” and the noun валежник refers to “fallen tree branches.” Regular reader Fitzmat corrected me that сваливать/свалить, despite its etymology, is not generally…
Time for a little spring cleaning (Emphasis on “a little”) Posted by Rob on Apr 19, 2013
Here in the Washington DC area, весна немного опоздала в этом году (spring was a little late this year) — I mean, we were still having a steady spell of ненастье (chilly wet weather) right through the end of March, followed by several unpleasantly знойныe ночи (sultry hot) nights in April. А теперь на дворе…
Sympathy for the Devil (or: A Look at Bulgakov’s Word Choices) Posted by Rob on Apr 9, 2013
During the recent Easter season, I found myself dipping into certain chapters from Bulgakov’s «Мастер и Маргарита» — after all, the master’s novel-within-a-novel retelling of key events from Страсти Христовы (“The Passion”) is quite central to the story . And, in fact, Bulgakov’s masterpiece was originally conceived as a short sketch in which the Devil…