«пол на полу» - the meaning revealed!

[mananas.livejournal.com]

Kind of.
A long time ago I asked this question here because my teacher wanted us to find out. I never asked her about it but she brought it up again the other day and implied that it literally meant "sex on the floor", while laughing hysterically. I cringed.

Comments

[merengue.livejournal.com]

No sense at all.
"Sex on the floor" would be "секс на полу". As "пол" in Russian is 1) floor; and 2) gender (not sex).

[ulfurinn.livejournal.com]

My ID says "sex". I have a hunch that most, if not all, IDs do.
Also, I've noticed a tendency towards using "гендер" in Russian for clearer distinction between these two categories. Mostly in psychological context though.

[gordin.livejournal.com]

Yes, but in the case with пол it can never express sex as a process, only sex as a gender.

[ulfurinn.livejournal.com]

Some people have weird associative chains :)

[hound-lancer.livejournal.com]

Did you tell her the true story then? And how old is she, bw, if the idea of sex on the floor that makes her so excited?

[mialuthien.livejournal.com]

It doesn't make any sense. I live in Latvia, where roughly half the population is Russian, and I'm fluent in Russian language as well... however, I've never heard anyone use such an expression before. It's nonsensical, really, and grammatically incorrect.

What a warped and corny sense of humour your teacher has. Sorry, if this offends you :)

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

I don't know any good psychiatrists in your area, so I cannot really help your professor, but she definitely needs such help, sorry for being so politically incorrect.

Please tell her the following: "The word пол in Russian, aside from "the floor," only means "gender," you know - one of two those types all higher animals are divided to, male or female. The process of sexual intercourse between those two types of higher animals, to which she relates as to "sex," can not, by any circumstances, in any dialect or lingo, be called "пол" in Russian, only "секс". If one wants to employ the stem "пол-" to describe such process, one can use "половое сношение", which means exactly "sexual intercourse." And that is basically it." Dixi.

[hound-lancer.livejournal.com]

She must've got so fascinated with the idea after seeing a bilingual questionary with the words sex and пол put opposite to each other. :)

[ashalynd.livejournal.com]

It appears to be an urban legend among the non-native Russian teachers :)

But alas, it is not true. I would really like to know where and when it started :)

[temcat.livejournal.com]

The only possibility for a pun using the two meanings of the word "пол" would be the phrase "менять пол". This phrase can mean both "to re-deck the floor" and "to change sex".

[mricon.livejournal.com]

I'll drink to that.

Barman, I'll have a "gender on the beach!"

I have another such example for you

[rottenshworz.livejournal.com]

Пол на поле.
Translate it :)

[nelirik.livejournal.com]

Let me explain also my point of view. Пол here may have 3 meanings - 1) "половина" ("half" of smth); 2) gender; 3) floor. Probably, "пол на полу" was just a part of bigger expression, for example: "Пол - на столе, пол - на полу", (here "пол" = "половина", half) which means "Half on the table, half on the floor" (for example, half of the hamburger). Another explanation may be connected with house reconstruction (renovation) business. In this case "пол на полу" means that floor actually consists from two different layers one (below) is older, second, on the top, is newer. For example, first floor's layer is wooden, second is floorcloth or parquet or so.