Pesky Phrase

[adrian-ilo.livejournal.com]

Hi Everyone,

I've seemed to have forgotten that phrase that means "to pull the wool over someone's eyes" or otherwise cook the books so that you appear to be doing what you're supposed to but it's actually just a facade. It usually used in reference to "apparatchicki" I think.

EX: The bureaucrats falsified documents to pull the wool over the administrator's eyes, so that they would continue to be paid more than their staff.

Thanks!

Comments

[nedotoha.livejournal.com]

Maybe "потемкинские деревни". Potemkin Villages (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potemkin_village)

[hellga.livejournal.com]

Показуха (noun) /показушничать (verb) ? Very colloquial, though.

[grihlo.livejournal.com]

пускать пыль в глаза?

[adrian-ilo.livejournal.com]

I was thinking more along the lines of like, falsifying receipts. It's something specific to documents.

[alex-aka-fry.livejournal.com]

Let`s take your example.
EX: The bureaucrats falsified documents to pull the wool over the administrator's eyes, so that they would continue to be paid more than their staff.

Forged or fraud/falsified documents are called "подделка". The process of giving them instead of the real ones is called "подлог". And the translation of your example will be like "Бюрократы предоставдяют поддельные документы, чтобы ввести администрацию в заблуждение и продолжить получать больше денег, чем подчинённые.", I think.

[adrian-ilo.livejournal.com]

Podelka! thats it.
Thanks

[oryx_and_crake]

it is поДДелка (поделка is a piece of arts or crafts)
and this word is by no means specific to bureaucratic process: it can refer to IDs, money, pieces of art (подделка документов, денег, произведений искусства)

[pinky-the-cow.livejournal.com]

I'd agree with this one.

It's even better than the english equivalent: "pull the wool over the eyes" utilizes assonance, while "пускать пыль в глаза" sounds more slogan-like with the double "п"-starting words and is shorter. :]

But, anyway, I might have been just pretending to be knowledgeable, while the dictionary actually has the exact phrase (http://www.multitran.ru/c/m.exe?a=phr&s=pull%20the%20wool&l1=1&l2=2). (multitran tries to search for phrases with the word(s) provided for translation, those results being provided below the translation for separate word or word combination picked)

[alex-aka-fry.livejournal.com]

Втирать очки
Вешать лапшу на уши
обмануть
надурить
провести (кого-либо)
водить (кого-либо) за нос

I think "to pull the wool over someone's eyes" is about telling lies, so these phrases might come in handy.

[gera.livejournal.com]

In this context, most likely, it's очковтирательство.

[oryx_and_crake]

+1