"About" and stickers

[wordchick.livejournal.com]

During lessons with my Russian tutor, every time I said про что-то, she would correct me, saying o чём-то. I thought these two prepositions were synonymous. Is the difference in register? Does o чём-то sound more educated?
Additionally, I've been reading Babel's Odessa Stories, and he seems to use a different form: За что-то. ("Скажи: Беня знает за облаву.") Is this criminal jargon, or maybe just local slang?

On another note, in the St. Petersburg metro, I saw a sticker with the following words: Олигарх тянет грязную лапу. Can someone help me parse this? I would have expected Олигарх тянет грязной лапой- The oligarch pulls with a dirty paw. I'm not sure what the former means, though I may well have misread the sticker.

I'd also like to thank everyone in this community. It's wonderful and supportive and it's become much more helpful as my Russian has improved. I don't know any dictionary that could supply all the shades of meaning that you all do or help out with slang. I am very grateful.

Comments

[krl-pgh.livejournal.com]

Yes, this "за" in Babel's stories is a local way of speaking. In "clean" Russian it is not acceptable.

Олигарх тянет грязную лапу: this is not "pulls with a dirty paw", this is "stretches a dirty paw toward something to grab it".

Yes, "o чём-то" for "about something" sounds more respectful, "про что-то" has a slight connotation that this "something" is not exactly worth discussing in your opinion.

[racoonbear.livejournal.com]

People used to say "o чём-то" 20 years ago and at that time "про что-то" sounded country-side like. Now almost all say "про что-то" and nobody cares, typically. Except old-school high-style teachers )

[wordchick.livejournal.com]

Ah, okay. I did not know that other meaning of тянет. Thank you.

[solarmind.livejournal.com]

Вообще тянуть как stretch, используется со смыслом "растягивать", например резину. Почему-то я сомневаюсь что этот же смысл можно так использовать в отношении руки олигарха :)
Вариант с "грязной лапой" был бы уместен если бы вы сказали "олигарх тянется грязной лапой".

[oryx_and_crake]

Please note that the working language of this community is English. Thank you.

[wordchick.livejournal.com]

Почему-то , indeed. I can't imagine why you'd feel that way. :)

[gera.livejournal.com]

Is this criminal jargon, or maybe just local slang?

The latter. Many of the characters of those stories use such non-standard Russian.

[karakal.livejournal.com]

про что-то = о чем-то, with the difference that the former is more conversational. You can find both forms in literary texts, though.

знать за что-то - It's an Odessian (or, more generally, Jewish) expression. Don't know if anybody in Odessa uses expressions like that nowadays aside from jokes, ironic imitations etc.

тянет грязную лапу = протягивает грязную лапу (к чему-л.)

[karakal.livejournal.com]

or тянется грязной лапой

[alon_68]

I guess it's definitely Odessan, not strictly Jewish. I haven't heard it in the speech of Ukrainian-Byelorussian Jews outside Odessa. There were several significant minorities there like Greeks, Bulgarians, Moldovans, even Armenians and Albanians (арнауты). They accepted Russian as the common vernacular but it wasn't their mother tongue, so they kept some unusual contructions in it.

[towarysc.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, поговорить за жизнь is used elsewhere.

[towarysc.livejournal.com]

(i meant *everywhere)

[uncle-gora.livejournal.com]

1. o чём-то does indeed sound more educated in this case.
2. it is local slang, basically meaning о\об (about). In Odessa people often say things in the following way:
Пастер знает за подполье (from a very funny video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RGzosNUiPg) that basically illustrates the usage of the Odessa's slang, but it does require good knowledge of Russian to fully appreciate it)
"Я хочу с тобой поговорить за твою машину" (there is a great russian joke to go with this one, if you are interested I can tell it)
"Я Вам не скажу за всю Одессу, вся Одесса очень велика" (song by Mark Bernes)
3. Олигарх тянет грязную лапу = Олигарх протягивает грязную лапу

[remi-jakovlevic.livejournal.com]

++"Я хочу с тобой поговорить за твою машину" (there is a great russian joke to go with this one, if you are interested I can tell it)++
Oh yes, please, tell it, it seems I don't know this one!

[uncle-gora.livejournal.com]

Двое одеситов в Америке. Один спрашивает у другого:
- Изя, как будет по-английски "за"?
- А зачем тебе?
- Я хочу поговорить с тем негром за его машину.

[remi-jakovlevic.livejournal.com]

:)) With a slight touch of political incorrectness

[uncle-gora.livejournal.com]

where?

[remi-jakovlevic.livejournal.com]

You couldn't say "Mikhaylo" instead of "Izya", and the Negro couldn't be a WASP. It's part of Odessa jokes (which Negroes and Jews love too :-) )

[crimeanelf.livejournal.com]

Негр is NOT offensive in Russian, just like it isn't in Spanish (negro, lit. black). It does NOT come from English "Negro" (for a race), but from neutral other-languaged "negro" (for a color). It is used in school textbook, anthropology studies, etc.

It is funny, Spanish colonizers used black slaves just as much, but the word for the race never became offensive.

On the contrary, the word чёрный (black) is *very* offensive, especially when is directed to кавказцы (people from Caucasus). If you still want to avoid негр, you'll have to say африканец or something like this.

[remi-jakovlevic.livejournal.com]

I know that (I speak Russian), but your comment is interesting. Mind that I haven't said "derogatory", "coarse" or "insulting": this joke is based upon ethnicity, which is exactly what they call a "slight touch of political incorrectness".

[crimeanelf.livejournal.com]

Ah I see your point.

[oryx_and_crake]

Actually, I don't think the joke would lose anything if you replace "негр" with "американец".

[karakal.livejournal.com]

I think it would lose something important in its sound, which is sometimes crucial for spoken jokes.

[remi-jakovlevic.livejournal.com]

Yep. Methinks it would give the famous song
айайайайайайа убили негра убили, айайайа не зачто не прочто

[remi-jakovlevic.livejournal.com]

It would be less funny for sure! (for sure... IMHO :-)

[wordchick.livejournal.com]

Can you explain the second meaning of the last sentence? I don't think I get it.

[uncle-gora.livejournal.com]

The only meaning of this sentance is
I want to talk to that black guy about his car.
This joke (at least the way I understand it) is not about different meaning of the sentance but rather about the fact that people from Odessa use word "за" so frequently that when learning new language this is the most important word to have the translation for. (or something like that)

[archaicos.livejournal.com]

Я Вам не скажу за всю Одессу, вся Одесса очень велика
Here за can also be interpreted as вместо (as in я сделал это за (вместо) него), it's grammatical Russian here.

[racoonbear.livejournal.com]

Funny, here is absolutely correct usage.

[wordchick.livejournal.com]

Wait, what? How does that work? I understood the phrase to mean "I won't tell you about all of Odessa, it's a very big city." Wouldn't вместо completely change the meaning?

[eez.livejournal.com]

No, this phrase is not about telling "about all of Odessa".

The song goes as follows:
Я вам не скажу за всю Одессу - вся Одесса очень велика,
Но и Молдованка, и Перессы обожают Костю-моряка

It's rather: I won't tell you for everyone in Odessa (as) it's a very big city. But (all people in) Moldovanka and Peressi (districs in Odessa) just love Kostya the sailor.

[uncle-gora.livejournal.com]

Пересыпь not Перессы.

[archaicos.livejournal.com]

Of course, the meaning would be different. But I wouldn't say completely.

If you only compare these two short expressions, they will be apparently different:
(рас)сказать о чем-то (that nonnormative use of за)
and
(рас)сказать вместо кого-то.

But let's look at the text again:

Я вам не скажy за всю Одессy,
Вся Одесса очень велика,
Hо и Молдованка и Пеpесыпь
Обожают Kостю моpяка.

It's important to consider this entire text to see all the possibilities, grammatical and semantic. There're two interpretations of it:

1. he won't tell about (nonnormative за=о(б)/про) the entire city of Odessa, but Moldovanka and Peresyp (two of Odessa's districts) adore sailor Kostya.

2. he won't express his opinion as(in place of) (за=вместо) the opinion of the entire city of Odessa, but Moldovanka and Peresyp adore sailor Kostya.

Interestingly enough, even though за itself can be interpreted differently, the meaning of this entire passage doesn't appear to depend on it much.

[wordchick.livejournal.com]

Oh, I see. I had assumed it was an example of the non-normative variant, not "I won't speak to you for Odessa." That makes much more sense with the full context.

[philena.livejournal.com]

My professor explained that про что-то, while usually more conversational, also specifically refers to something more narrative, while о чем-то is used in general expressions. So you could say Он говорил мне про свое детство or Он говорил мне о своем дестсве, but you can only say Он говорил мне о биологии.

Native speakers, is this right? My professor is a native Russian speaker, but he also said that you cannot use ходить when discussing great inter-city distances, even if the person is indeed going by foot, and you told me here that that is false.

[oryx_and_crake]

I can only agree that про is more conversational than о. The rest sounds very fishy. To me, both Он говорил мне о биологии and Он говорил мне про биологию sound slightly awkward. On the other hand, Мы говорили о биологии and Мы говорили про биологию, Он рассказывал мне о биологии and Он рассказывал мне про биологию all sound OK.

Apart from that, in Он говорил мне про свое детство or Он говорил мне о своем детстве both sound wrong because of "мне". "Он говорил мне ..." is normally used with a concrete statement, e.g. "Он говорил мне, что завтра уезжает." If he shared something about his childhood, and the sentence does not specify what it was, it is better to say "Он рассказывал мне о своем детстве". If, on the other hand, he was speaking to an audience, you can say "Он говорил о своем детстве/про свое детство" (without "мне").

[philena.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I was hesitating about whether to use говорить or рассказывать in my examples, and decided on the former because I thought рассказывать might prejudice the interpretation towards the expectation of a narrative statement. Evidently, though, if you can say Он рассказывал мне про биологию, then my assumption about рассказывать (because of its relation to рассказ) is wrong.

It's very frustrating needing to learn these fine nuances for my class, and then being told by you folks that it's all wrong! I'm probably going to end up needing to learn two Russians, which is tiresome when I'd rather use that brain-space for Bulgarian or something.

[windy-corner.livejournal.com]

My perception of the difference between говорить/рассказать о... and говорить/рассказать про... tells me that 'про' isn't just more conversational but also has some specific flavour. In my opinion, рассказать про... would imply that a certain instance, perhaps, of confidential character is revealed, while рассказать о... would only mean to tell or inform about... Он рассказывал мне про биологию I'd take as a story about what'd happened at a biology class (something that I'd heard of and was intersted to hear about), like Russian 'кое-что' would better go with 'про' than 'о' - 'Я кое-что про тебя слышал'. 'Я все про тебя знаю' - You can't hide from me, I know your secret. Я все о вас знаю would rather mean the speaker's awareness of other person's biographical and other details. A famous TV programme "Про это" was about sex and sexual relationship.)))

ПРО- as a prefix has the meaning of thoroughness, going through (пройти через парк, огонь, воду и медные трубы, испытание, сквозь стену, прочитать книгу, просушить как следует волосы, проговориться = выболтать секрет), while О- has the meaning of a kind of going around without intefering the borders (описать обстановку, обойти музей, оговорить подробности). Similar, while talking ПРО we interfere with the borders while О is on a safer side.

IMHO, of course. )))

[paparazzzzi.livejournal.com]

Why don't you ask your tutor? 0.0

[wordchick.livejournal.com]

Because the Atlantic separates us :(