Moscow Times article

[alektoeumenides.livejournal.com]

Who's Breathing on the Back of Your Head?


By Michele A. Berdy

Сломя голову: at breakneck speed

Body parts are an interesting subject for cross-cultural analysis. Sometimes we English speakers are more specific about which body part we mean (as we are with hands, feet, arms and legs); sometimes Russian speakers are. Sometimes we have more or less the same expressions, only we've got different body parts involved. This is a minefield for mistakes: It's very easy to insert the wrong body part in an expression and end up with your foot in your mouth.

Take, for example, затылок (back of the head). We Anglophones don't have much cause to talk about it, unless we are writing a crime novel and the victim dies from a blow to the back of the head (with the proverbial blunt weapon). But it's a separate word in Russian, with its own set of expressions. For example, Как мне закончить отчёт, когда начальник дышит мне в затылок! (How can I finish the report when my boss is breathing down my neck? -- literally "breathing on the back of my head"?) Or, Он почесал в затылке. In both languages the gesture and phrase mean: "to be puzzled by something," although in English we'd just say, "He scratched his head." However, here's a test for all you English-speakers: Put down the newspaper or the mouse and do the gesture. You'll see that you scratch the back of your head, even if you don't express it that way. For us, a head is just a head.

In Russian you can also say чувствовать затылком -- literally "to feel it with the back of my head," that is, to have an intuitive sense of something, usually unpleasant. In English, we feel things "in our bones." Он почувствовал затылком, что его партнёр -- жулик. (He knew his partner was a crook -- he felt it in his bones.)

The head in Russian is голова, which can also be used figuratively (although less commonly than in English) to mean the "head of something": Он сам себе голова. (He's his own boss, literally, "he's his own head.") It can also mean "the brains" of/behind something: Слава был директором организации, но ее головой был Дима. (Slava was the director, but Dima was the brains behind the organization.)

For some reason English sometimes includes the shoulders where in Russian the head is enough: Мы взяли Диму на работу -- он был на голову выше других кандидатов. (We hired Dima; he was head and shoulders above the other candidates for the job.) You can say of someone who is smart, Она -- девушка с головой (She's got a good head on her shoulders, literally, "She's a girl with a head.") On the other hand, you can also say, У него голова на плечах. (He's got his head screwed on right, literally, "his head is on his shoulders.") If you say of someone, У него плохо с головой (literally, "something's bad with his head"), you mean: he's not thinking straight, he's got a screw loose (presumably the one that keeps his head screwed on). It's also useful to know that we share the same notion of горячая голова (a hot head) and светлая голова (although here we say "a bright/brilliant person" rather than head).

In other expressions Russians use their heads, while English speakers use other related body parts: In Russian when you are struggling with a problem, you say ломать голову -- "to break my head over something." Я долго ломала голову над этой проблемой и наконец-то придумала выход. (I racked my brains over that problem for a long time, but finally found a solution.) But be careful: сломя голову (literally "breaking one's head") means "at breakneck speed": Он бросался сломя голову домой. (He raced home at breakneck speed.) Both Russian- and English-speakers "lose their heads" when they are flustered or upset: Не теряй голову! (Don't lose your head!/Keep calm!/Take it easy!)

And then there's башка -- widespread Russian slang for "head." When Russian heads aren't working right, they aren't cooking: башка не варит (I'm brain dead, literally "my head isn't boiling").

And if you're confused, just say Башка болит! (I've got a headache!)


Michele A. Berdy is a Moscow-based interpreter and translator.