sayings

[kersti79.livejournal.com]

Does anybody know a website that explains the meaning of proverbs and sayings? I couldn't find one.
By the way, what do the following phrases mean?

С паном по-пански, с хамом по-хамски.
Долг платежом красен.

Comments

[svyatogor.livejournal.com]

"Долг платежом красен." - the exact translation would be that "debt is as good as the return" impying that at some point one should the debt.

"С паном по-пански, с хамом по-хамски." - everyone should get treatment he deserves. with lout you speak in rude way and with 'пан' in respectfull manner.

p.s. 'пан' is a landlord in Polland also often used in Ukrain. in modern language is a neutral way to address a man.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

>in modern language is a neutral way to address a man

It is not. It is an "ukrainism," they still use it in some Southern dialects. And it is not neutral. A dialectal word for "gentleman," that's what it is.

[russiandude.livejournal.com]

Is there the connotation of addressing someone who is of higher (social? economical?) standing than you are?

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Yes, there WAS.
It is completely neutral in modern Polish, and more or less neutral in Ukrainian (where it simply means "Mr."), but in Southern Russian dialects it still stands for "a noble/wealthy person, as opposed to us peasants" -- before the revolution, it was more or less synonymous to the more common Russian барин (the word a peasant would address to a noble, or to a more wealty person, like a merchant, with.) When a peasant from Central or Northern Russia would speak about gentlemen, he would call them "баре" (plural for барин,) while a houseworker or a poor city dweller would rather say "господа"; a Southerner would say "паны" in this situation.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

>С паном по-пански, с хамом по-хамски.

[you speak] with a gentleman like a gentleman, [and] with a boor like a boor.

>Долг платежом красен

Literally, "it is the payment which is beautiful in a debt." It means that you're a gentleman only if you return what you owe.

[russiandude.livejournal.com]

One could make it more general and say [you deal] as opposed to [you speak].

You could also extrapolate that the second saying can be used to say:
"The best way to thank someone for a debt is to pay it back."

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

As of the 2nd, I tend to agree.

Didn't get the 1st sentence, sorry.

[russiandude.livejournal.com]

Sorry, what I meant was that you could extend the first proverb to how one deals with a given person, as opposed to limiting it to how one speaks with a given person.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Yes, you're right.

Proverb Web sites

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

There is a couple of sites with Russian proverbs, though most of them only ofer a few proverbs:

http://masterrussian.com/blproverbs.shtml
http://www.meirionnydd.force9.co.uk/russian/proverbs.html

or are organized strangely:
http://learningrussian.com/phrasearc.htm

This one is pretty good:
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Russian_proverbs

[kersti79.livejournal.com]

Thanks!