Tag: Russia

Misguided Lessons with Grok: A Bilingual Blunder | August 19 2025, 23:43

Today Grok blew my mind. I say, teach me French. He says, ok, how do you say “book”? I say “le livre”. He says “wrong! la livra”. 😳The car drives itself anyway, decided to record the dialogue. He’s not convinced. At all, insists on his point. La livra and that’s it. I’m afraid Grok will teach the bad stuff in his Language Tutor mode.

I remembered a story from “Memoirs of Pushkin” by M. E. Yuzefovich, dating to 1829:

he had several books with him, including Shakespeare. One day in our tent, he translated some scenes to me and my brother. I had once studied English, but having not fully learned it, I subsequently forgot it. However, I still recognized its sounds. In Pushkin’s reading, the English pronunciation was so distorted that I suspected his knowledge and decided to test it. The next day, I invited his relative, Zakhar Chernyshev, who knew English as his native language, warned him what was going on, and called over Pushkin with Shakespeare. He willingly started translating for us. Chernyshev burst into laughter at the first words read by Pushkin: “First tell me, in which language are you reading?” Pushkin laughed in turn, explaining that he had taught himself English, and therefore he reads English letters like Latin ones. But the fact is that Chernyshev found the translation completely correct and the language understanding impeccable.”

Anna Derevenitskaya

Tasting the Unexpected: Maple Bacon Onion Jam | August 18 2025, 00:52

Bought a tasty treat for tea today. Can you imagine onion-maple-bacon jam? Neither can I yet. But it exists and is waiting for me to get hungry. My jar is without onion, but the bacon and maple are there.

On the other hand, Americans might not understand aspic, they consider it to be a meat jelly made from cow’s feet, and at the mention of jelly, they think of dessert, and cow’s feet are totally out of the picture there

Gender Stereotypes in Global Symbolism: A Russian TV Perspective | August 15 2025, 14:43

They say this is broadcast on central TV in Russia. I don’t know what they mean by that, but here’s what I thought: people in the clip represent countries, and their gender choice is not random. When they want to depict Russia as a person, they somehow always choose a girl in a kokoshnik, and not a church-going man with a beard like Rasputin or Ivan the Terrible. You might say, well, the word “Russia” is feminine, just as the word America is, but when depicting America, you get some Superman or at least a capitalist like Uncle Sam. Yes, you might say, there’s the Statue of Liberty. True, but in such clips for some reason they don’t put a girl with a seven-point crown as America, and a warrior on a horse as Russia. It’s the other way around.

Though, one would think, girls shown in such a position in commercials are clearly in a submissive role to someone bigger and stronger. It’s interesting if such a clip was made in the USA, it would surely be the opposite — the USA would definitely be represented by a strong woman in a seven-point crown (not a girl), and Russia by some aged man, definitely in a warm tulup and a hat with ear flaps. But surely there would have arisen the question “who then leads whom” and the clip would just not have been released.

One might also recall that Russia is called “Mother Russia” (motherland), whereas for example in Germany it is established as Fatherland (Vaterland). France is definitely associated with the feminine — often depicted as Marianne (La Marianne), the United Kingdom symbolized by the figure of Britannia. Ukraine is definitively feminine, and sadly, the country currently has a serious gender imbalance. As for Mexico, it would surely be depicted as a man with a guitar.

Exploring Muscadines: A Native Grape with a Rich History | August 12 2025, 20:40

At our supermarket, they sell muscadines – a type of grape that is twice the size of regular ones. The green variety of muscadines is called scuppernong. They have thick skin and seeds a few millimeters in size. Muscadines are a native grape variety, known since the 16th century. Typically, muscadines and scuppernongs are used for making wine, but they are also sold fresh.

I hadn’t seen them before, and probably neither have you.

Exploring Must-Have Russian Books for Science and Art Lovers | August 10 2025, 14:01

Can you recommend some interesting books to bring (or order) from Russia to the USA, considering my interests (popular science, primarily local non-translations from English, as I can read the originals in English, and perhaps drawing) and various other intriguing things (see part of my collection)?

Exploring the Intrigue of 657 New Words in the Russian Orthographic Dictionary | August 08 2025, 18:46

657 new words were added to the RAN orthographic dictionary — for instance, “smoothie,” “TikToker,” “powerbank,” and “SVO.” I decided to check out their complete list. Let’s head to the Akademos website and type “2025” in the search.

(Putin’s advisor wrote that “SVO” is correct, but anglicisms are unnecessary. In my opinion, anglicisms are perfectly fine, but with everything else — they truly break the Russian language. Check it out)

Noble-metallic, Bodrich-style and Radimich-style, Byzantinizing, suitable-for-vine-growing, humanizing, icy-frosty, two-strap, Dregovichanka, jacaranda, children-foreign-phoned, “Devo: Virgin Mary Devo” (that’s an entry in the dictionary), fear-of-women, back-of-the-chair, koin, literature-centricity, petty-little-thing (is it describing a woman or a coin?), over-door-woman, Nibelung-esque, nonillion (I guess needed for fining Google), deaeration, Palaiologos and Pantalone, varicolored, petrosphere, to preexist, family-preservation, strongly-fleeing and moderately-fleeing, scrambled.

Interestingly, there is an entry “firmly promised,” written with a space inside.

And there is Sloboda Ukraine there.

There’s offline-messenger! and proxy-list. And torrent-client.

In 2025 “FIFA (International Federation of Association Football)” and “Dictionary of Modern Russian Literary Language” were added to the orthographic dictionary. There’s separately, “Doomsday: Doomsday plane”

There’s taphophilia — a fascination with cemeteries.

And there is philosemitism. As I understand it, it’s the same as Judophilia — manifestations of interest, respect for the Jewish people, their historical significance, and a positive appraisal of the influence of Judaism in history. Where do they even get such words?

Added to the dictionary were west-northwest-er (apparently, a direction slightly west of northwest) and west-southwest-er.

There’s late-developing and later-developing.

If you go on a diet, know that there’s a word for de-fatting. And then there’s a chance that you’ll become an ectomorph — also a word in this dictionary.

There are also drone and pilot-borehole.

Yet among the new words of 2025 there’s “coup d’état”.

Unexpected Repair Success at a Premium Bike Shop | August 07 2025, 02:41

Today, I had a little odyssey trying to find a place to tune up my bike. It’s a few years old, tired, and in need of attention. I visited three shops, each told me it would take at least a week or two and would cost about 200 dollars. Everyone said there were thirty people ahead of me. Eventually, I took a chance and went to the last shop which I initially thought was too premium and expensive to consider at all: their main inventory includes triathlon Cervelo and Factor bikes with five-digit price tags. But here’s the surprise: they took the bike right away, told me to wait for a call today, and if anything serious—a decision from me would be required. In the evening, they called and told me it was all done, and the cost… just 32 dollars! I’m very glad that I did not have to overpay or wait for weeks.

This goes to show that sometimes, to achieve something, you just need to act contrary to standard patterns of behavior.

Exploring Unusual Time Signatures: From Prokofiev to Pink Floyd | July 28 2025, 05:32

A small concert at a Catholic university. Prokofiev’s 7th sonata features a tricky musical meter — 7/8. It’s interesting, but it seems I’ve never heard or known anything else in this meter. Early 20th-century composers were quite the innovators. Oh, I remember now. The closest to 7/8 was in Pink Floyd’s “Money” with their 7/4.