Hi, Alexander!  Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:

AK>  At first Bender decided to upset the Koreyko's balance 
AK>  and make him nervous. And he sent him some telegrams, 
AK>  like this: 

AK>  "LOAD ORANGES IN BARRELS"

AK>  It sounds confusing and crazy in Russian, and I have 
AK>  thought for a long time it is crazy in English too. 


          Perhaps Bender meant this stuff to come across as a riddle, a secret code, and/or the ravings of a madman in order to upset Koreyko?  :-)
      


AK>  But all of a sudden I heard on American TV like this: 

AK>  "Bad apple spoils barrel".

AK>  Aha, I thought, now I know where they load apples in 
AK>  barrels, not baskets, and probably they load oranges 
AK>  in the same way, too. So, Bender probably knew some 
AK>  English. ;-)


          ... even if he did the expression may simply not translate well.  I first heard it as a teenager when it was clearly being used in a metaphorical sense to refer to one of my fellow students.  The way I heard it was "one bad apple spoils the whole barrel [i.e. the whole kit & kaboodle]".

          Years ago hand-picked fruits & vegetables were loaded into baskets, then transferred to wooden crates or barrels for shipping elsewhere.  Grocery stores often displayed their wares in such containers... whereas nowadays you would be more likely to see cardboard cartons used for this purpose.  But the principle is the same: a rotten piece of fruit can easily infect others.  :-Q




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+