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Fantastic - thank you!

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Ok, so in the actual speech see above - he used the perfective (?). What would have been the difference if he used the imperfective?

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New commenter, same question (bad Pirates reference, sorry. I couldn't help myself)

Ok, so in the actual speech see above - he used the perfective (?). What would have been the difference if he used the imperfective?

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In the translation it looked like it might have been meant as very menacing, it just didn't quite work in English.

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None. Мало бы не показалось refers to the "possible past", while "мало не покажется" refers to the furure. It's a low-style street-talk threat anyway.

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definite.livejournal.com

I guess, it's not the perfective (as wolk_off said below), it's subjunctive mood. Actually, my translation was wrong in terms of grammar; "мало бы не показалось" is the exact translation.
It is possible (grammatically) to say "мало не кажется" which is imperfective, but it would be wrong stylistically. "Мало бы не показалось" (referring to the possible past) and "мало не покажется" (referring to the future) are set expressions.

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gotcha. Thanks for the explanation. Seems odd that a high ranking politician would resort to street slang, personally. Is that typical of the rhetoric coming out of the Kremlin lately?

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Thanks for the explanation!

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Look, if the Soviet Union was a police state (or pretended to be, in its late form,) then the early independent Russia (between 1991 and 1999) was a mobster state, and the current regime is the police mobster state :) It is very typical of govering mobsters to speak this way, no matter how high their rank is. The president himself had promised to the terrorists to "мочить их в сортире" (to kill'em in the bog, so to say.)

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Even so, I would expect people in power to at least put on a veneer of politeness and diplomacy. Not so, evidently. I remember hearing someting similar in the press after the Beslam bombings, but just assumed the press was being a bit over the top with the translation.

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One could expect from them anything, including politeness and diplomacy, but this wouldn't mean that one's expectations would come true. Russia is the land of unpleasant surprises, don't forget that. And they do not teach Public Speech in Russian schools.

You are sudying that, but we -- we have to live in all that :)))))

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I don't think "threat" or "menace" are exact qualifications here, and I doubt if Mironov meant to sound like that. The expression can be used simply as a warning, without hostile overtones, and is indeed rather informal, which is sort of current vogue in Russian public speech.

The context: Может быть, я разочарую радиослушателей, но если бы Россия реально хотела использовать этот фактор и его использовала, то - есть такая присказка - мало бы не показалось. Россия исходит абсолютно из других приоритетов [...]

Approximate translation:

"Perhaps I'm going to disappoint our audience, but if Russia had intended to actually make use of that factor, and had used it, then - there is such a byword - it wouldn't seem too little. The priorities Russia is basing itself on are completely different [...]"

Rather, it appears that Mironov is intentionally informal, perhaps just to soften the point of the rather provocative question. If there's a threat, it's rather in the question, and it looks like Mironov was trying to shade it. (I think he's a cowardly and cynical beast, but not a dyslectic.)

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sister-of-yours.livejournal.com

Of course, he wasn't threatening) It was a regular gross-out, no more, no less.
It's very common for Russian authorities to use such phraseology when they talk about CIS states, or Baltic states etc. We are never offended. We realize, people who are not worthy of respect, can not show respect for anybody else. Never mind.
Greetings from CIS.

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I don't see your point. If you suffer from disrespect from Russians, then (1) it wasn't me and (2) it's grossly off-topic, IMHO.

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sister-of-yours.livejournal.com

Off-topic? Well, look at your comment, please) We gave two opinions on the same matter - do his words in Russian sound menacing or they look just like another way to show disrespect to the independent states.

If this matter is off-topic I apologize to fox_c, but not to you. Cause it wasn't me who started the discussion and made an attempt to justify the lack of culture and prudence which is demonstrated clearly by Russian politicians. Bye.

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My comment was about the language. Don't make me protect the politicians. I don't respect them myself - just because they continue to sell out this country's strategic resources to ugly and unfriendly regimes. Which is indeed a sign of cultural (ethical, etc.) inferiority.

Back to topic: I still insist that the expression in question doesn't necessarily sound, and clearly wasn't meant to sound, threatening.

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Oh, he is definitely not a dyslectic, neither is he a fool of any sort. He just reveals the trend which is current among the Russian, er, ruling elite. Since those 1990s politicians were the most clever, cunning-minded, and quick Komsomol and KGB guys to grab everything which was literally falling into their hands -- money, power, the whole country itself -- they were also very quick in mimicking, perhaps involuntarily, the Newspeak of those who, at the same time, was equally quick in grabbing as much public property as their greedy hands could bear, the ex- (or even acting) mobsters from dull industrial Russian suburbs. Those guys are not stupid, they are simply all too typical for their time, current language trends included.

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sister-of-yours.livejournal.com

I still insist that the expression in question... wasn't meant to sound THREATENING (c)

So do I) Just slighting.

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colonelrabin.livejournal.com

I apologize for the off-topic (which is surprisingly still not removed) but especially Sergei Mironov obviously IS a dislectic and is FAMOUS as an idiot and clown. His sentences concerning completely different topics were and are to envy by any comic. He is the "Number 3" in this sense following Chernomyrdin and Zhirinivsky. With the difference that both of them are known to be sly and coony.

And yes, the expression of topic is an indefinite threat.

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Towards whom?! The audience was supposedly Russian (Muscovite) residents.

Look, if you want some political flame, I don't object to such in my Russian journal (http://www.livejournal.com/users/uxus/14711.html). Please, don't continue here.

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Sorry so much, it appears my comment provoked a lot of offtopic... :(

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colonelrabin.livejournal.com

Ooops, ZhirinOvsky, of course

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