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Yet another Russian language lesson


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Well I took a look for a cool Soviet phrase that describes "General Winter", and this is what I found:

The Simon Wiesenthal Center

The Cossack Web

Combined Arms Research Library

Oddly enough, I've found one reference that states the term General Winter, was coined by Napoleon during his Russian invasion, and another reference that states the term is of old Nordic mythology. Unfortunately I found nothing in terms of Russian slang that offers a cool title however.

[ January 05, 2003, 10:35 AM: Message edited by: Bruno Weiss ]

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Originally posted by Gordon:

Wasn't there a common phrase in Russian that referred to "General Winter" as their most important commander? Or was it his brother "General Mud"? smile.gif

If not that, I need a good Russian phrase that evokes Winter for use with CMMOS.

General in Russian is Генерал, General (with a hard g). Winter is Зима, Zima; Frost is Мороз, Moroz; Mud is Грязь, Gryaz'. My dictionaries don;t show any actual collocations such as "General Mud", though.

A title I rather care for would be Собачий Холод, Sobachiy Kholod, translated roughly as "The bloody (lit. "bitching") cold", which was the title of a humorous short story by Ilf' and Petrov written before or during the Great Patriotic war.

All the best,

John.

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Originally posted by John D Salt:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Gordon:

Wasn't there a common phrase in Russian that referred to "General Winter" as their most important commander? Or was it his brother "General Mud"? smile.gif

If not that, I need a good Russian phrase that evokes Winter for use with CMMOS.

General in Russian is Генерал, General (with a hard g). Winter is Зима, Zima; Frost is Мороз, Moroz; Mud is Грязь, Gryaz'. My dictionaries don;t show any actual collocations such as "General Mud", though.

A title I rather care for would be Собачий Холод, Sobachiy Kholod, translated roughly as "The bloody (lit. "bitching") cold", which was the title of a humorous short story by Ilf' and Petrov written before or during the Great Patriotic war.

All the best,

John.</font>

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There is no phrase in Russian with "winter", "frost" or "mud" referring to anything like "important commander". The only thing I could find remotely close to your question is "matushka zima" (mother winter). One (of many) meaning may be "russians are so used to winter snow and cold (unlike germans) and winter protects russians like mother would".

"Sobachiy Kholod" would mean just "very cold".

May be I could help you better if you give full phrase where you wanted use "general winter".

[ January 06, 2003, 03:30 PM: Message edited by: RGL12 ]

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Originally posted by Gordon:

[snips]John,

"The bitching cold" is a distinct possibility. My question is, as I need to be able to display this within CMMOS, is the total quote "Sobachiy Kholod"?

Yes, if you use the same scheme for transliterating Cyrillic as I do. Another variant you might see would be "sobachii kholod", which I wouldn't quarrel with.

Smirnitsky's dictionary renders "sobachiy kholod" as "the beastly cold", which is milder than "bloody" and seems about right. "Sobachiy" is the adjective from "sobaka", a dog, so "bitching" preserves the canine overtones and is clearly a better translation than "doggy" here, although to me it sounds a bit too much like the sort of thing the 1457th (Lake Baikal) Guards Gangsta Rappers might say.

All the best,

John.

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Originally posted by RGL12:

[snips]The only thing I could find remotely close to your question is "matushka zima" (mother winter).

...and, bearing in mind the time of year, let's not forget Дед-Мороз (Ded Moroz, "Uncle Frost"), who sounds as if he ought to be Jack Frost but is really Santa Claus.

All the best,

John.

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Ok, to clarify what we're looking for, in CMMOS for CMBO we have a category of mods called "Winter Wonderland", which covers the various winter terrain mods that are available. What I'm looking for is a phrase to use as the name of the comparable category of mods for CMMOS for CMBB.

"Matushka zima" sounds like a possiblity. My initial reference to "General Winter" was that I thought there was a common reference to Winter being one of the Soviet's biggest advantages.

So, do we have any suggestions better than "Matushka zima" or "Sobachiy Kholod"?

Thanks very much,

Gordon

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I agree that "matushka zima (or zeema)" may have close associations with fairy tales and lacks brutality and other general attributes of war. On the other hand seeing winter mods set "Sobachiy Kholod" will make me think about some comedy-looking soldiers with red noses and blue faces in funny clothes with shaking hands and teeth. Almost like if it was called "dude its f'ng cold out there".

I'm not a poet :D but "zimnee bezmolvie" (winter silence ???) would sound better than these two.

Bruno:

You can install Russian keyboard/fonts (try google) and label keys like this : http://koi8.pp.ru/cyrkb.gif http://oude.dse.nl/ime/russify/keyboard.jpg

or type in english using these layouts and have other person use them too to understand your text.

[ January 06, 2003, 06:04 PM: Message edited by: RGL12 ]

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Originally posted by Bruno Weiss:

Ah, don't wanna hijack the thread, but was reading above. How does one type that Rusky stuff? I have some Russian I need to interpret off of a map. I guess a better question is what is a good method of interpreting Russian from a document/map index?

Oddly enough, that goofy link I posted above has a Russian/English translater. You might want to check it out.

Here's a direct link if you want to skip the nonsense.

[ January 06, 2003, 07:23 PM: Message edited by: Pvt. Ryan ]

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I insist on "Bezmolvie" ;) "Zimnee Zatishje" is unlikely to be used as song or book title while "Bezmolvie" has more "art" in it.

Another idea - if you mods contain some uniforms - name it "Valenki". Probably one of the best things a soldier could wish in the winter [war]. Vodka beats it of course, but thats about it tongue.gif

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