Hi, Ardith Hinton! -> Alexander Koryagin
I read your message from 30.09.2021 23:36

 ak>> I am not sure I know the correct word. In Russia we use the
 ak>> word "a male goat" as an idiomatic sleng word meaning absence of
 ak>> respect, or when you have a resentment to somebody.

 AH> When I looked up "twit" in THE FREE DICTIONARY I found quite a lot
 AH> of stuff you might find useful, including definitions & synonyms.
 AH> In summary... a twit is a foolish, stupid, annoying, and/or
 AH> insignificant person. I'm guessing that is more or less what you
 AH> were thinking of here.

Did you use "twit" as "beep" when somebody on TV swears? Is "goat" so
indecent?

 ak>> Does the following story sound funny in English and can it be
 ak>> improved?

 AH> Yes, on both counts. Long explanation to follow... [grin].

 ak>> Three men from the USA delegation came to Russia and went to a big
 ak>> plant to sign a contract. The director sees them into his cabinet

 AH>                                                     |private office

Yea, there are many words in Russian when we are sure that they mean the
same in English. :)

 AH> Why not use the same verb tense throughout the story? I know we
 AH> have discussed this issue already... but a tense change in mid-
 AH> paragraph, unless the logic is obvious to me, still sounds wrong
 AH> according to what I was taught.: - Q

I agree. Although I saw many examples of it in the modern literature. It
looks like as if we put the reader into the situation we are telling
him. So, we have a kind of innuendo "once upon a time ..." And next we
are as if present at the place. Probably this can make the story more
vivid. Of maybe it can be considered as a free informal style?

 ak>> and says to his secretary girl, "Well dear --
 AH> |female secretary

Although such informal "dear" can be applied to the girl only.

 ak>> one glass of cognac for me and three tea for these goats."

 AH> IOW he's such an important person he can drink alcoholic beverages
 AH> on the job without offering any to persons he regards as inferior
 AH> to himself... or at least he thinks he is. My sympathies lie with
 AH> the translator already. :-))

He knows that American businessmen don't drink at work. How foolish of
them! ;-)

 ak>> One man from the delegation says, "two tea, please, I am a
 ak>> translator."

 AH> Ah... so this story is not a commentary on the status of women. But
 AH> to be fair, I'm writing as if the translator could be male or
 AH> female.

 AH> On a sociological level, the translator may be thinking s/he works
 AH> as hard as (and probably gets paid less than) other folk attending
 AH> this meeting... yet, like the secretary, s/he is a highly skilled
 AH> individual without whose help these guys would be unable to do
 AH> their jobs. And if s/he's expected to talk as much as all of them
 AH> do the need to wet his/her whistle may be greater.

I think the story mostly tells us that Russians like to drink alcohol
everywhere. So we find out actually that the translator is a Russian and
he probably doesn't mind to have a shot too.

 AH>     In English, the translator's response could be a play on words too:

 AH> * I often hear young servers nowadays saying e.g. "two coffees" or
 AH>   "two teas" when they mean "two cups of [whatever]".  Perhaps the
 AH>   translator has noticed this phenomenon as well.  Either way, two
 AH>   or more generally --> pluralization of a noun or pronoun.

I noted it. :)

 AH> * When people have more than one variety of tea in stock, they may
 AH>   ask which a guest prefers.  My mother-in-law used to offer China
 AH>   tea or India tea.  I reckon that in such situations a translator
 AH>   might say "One cup of each, please... I'm bilingual."

I see.

 AH> * Depending on the intonation, and on whether s/he's addressing the
 AH>   secretary or the director, the translator's reply could be heard
 AH>   as "to tease"... an allusion to the director's bad manners.  And
 AH>   s/he sets a good example by adding "please", which he didn't do.

The boss certainly was not an example of a good person.

 AH> I see the translator's response as amusing when I think of
 AH> situations in which e.g. a male teacher nearing retirement
 AH> disagreed with our principal at staff meetings from time to time. I
 AH> also notice that the actual words could be interpreted in more than
 AH> one way, as is very common with jokes in English.

Yes. It is not necessary that the translator wanted to drink alcohol.
The understanding depends on our feeling of black humour. :)


Bye, Ardith!
Alexander Koryagin
english_tutor 2021

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