Two more quotations from films

[lara86.livejournal.com]

Dorogie kollegi :)

What is the meaning of this quotation in contemporary Russian language?

Кто возьмёт билетов пачку, тот получит водокачку
Туалет, типа сортир (обозначенный буквами «Мэ» и «Жо»)

Both from the film "Бриллантовая рука".

Thank you in advance

Comments

[alon_68]

Have you seen the movie? It's nothing special in those quotations, simply the movie was one of must-sees in the Soviet times, so a person could expect that any random counterpart knows it well.

Жо sounds funny because it resembles жопа. Correct letters names would be "em" and "zhe" (males/females)

[crimeanelf.livejournal.com]

"Who will get a bunch of tickets, will receive a water pump."

"A restroom of toilet type (denoted by letters Mo and We)."

The first one rhymes. The second one makes fun of туалет being a common polite word and сортир being a familiar, almost rude word for the same thing. Besides, I agree with alon_68 about жо[па].

[crimeanelf.livejournal.com]

More. When I hear туалет, I think of an ordinary restroom with sink, toilet paper, etc. When I hear сортир, I think of something used by street gangers, farmers, uneducated laborers, maybe a dirty septic tank, anyways, something not fancy at all.

[surkova.livejournal.com]

to my mind сортир came from the times when people lived in barracks and didn't have flats.

[crimeanelf.livejournal.com]

The name for toilet changes with time. It is funny how a word gradually becomes rude and people start to use another one instead. Remember the word параша?

[mr-grobowsky.livejournal.com]

No, in fact there was no time in USSR, "when people lived in barracks". But the toilets in a public places are often the set of cabins in a separate rooms, that "sort" persons, who want to use it by sex. So, the "сортир" is that kind of public toilet.
This word is also (improperly!) used for a toilet as a separate building, mainly in russian villages, that have no central canalization.

ЗЫ: Sorry for my bad english :)

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

>>there was no time in USSR, "when people lived in barracks".

Hmm. It looks like you're too young to remember, and/or never travelled outside of Moscow :) Believe me, there's still hundreds of thousands of Russians living in barracks.

>>in a separate rooms, that "sort" persons, who want to use it by sex

Bull***t -- сортир is a French borrowing; when "educated" Russians of 19th century wanted to use a loo, they would say to their equally "educated" counterparts "je dois sortir" (literally, I need to go out.)

[mr-grobowsky.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I've screwed up with the "сортир" meaning explanation. My father told me that when I was 10. Now I see, he was probably joking :)

I'm 26 and neither my grandpa or grandgrandma not remember any times in USSR, when the peoples lived in barracks. But it depends on a definition. If we assume, that apartments like modern students dorm IS a barracks (but I this we cannot do so), then my grandpa lived in one of them, living in Kazakhstan during the "поднятие целины", and his wife too, she was an engineer and work on "БАМ". And anyone, who lived in communal apartments too. Then more then 20% of soviet citizens actually lived in a barracks and I'm wrong.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

I grew up in a communal apartment -- 8 families using one kitchen, one toilet, and one shower - in downtown Moscow. You could wait hours for your turn to use the bathroom. My ex-wife grew up in a real barrack - one-storey, wooden roof, a separate iron stove in each room, with no sanitary facilities: country-style toilets outside the building, and no water supply -- they had to bring water in buckets from a standpipe one block away. This was in mid-to-late 1970s, on a military base in Lower Volga region.

[mr-grobowsky.livejournal.com]

oh, wow..

My father is an officer, moreover, he is frontier guard (excuse me, if it is not proper words for "пограничник"), so we constantly moved across the country border, but I never sow such a terrifying life conditions (we lived on the Kuril islands, near Semipalatinsk, near Khabarovsk and in Dauria, usually in a small military towns) and I never new any people, who lived in such places.

The USSR was the big country, and people lived very different lives there :)

ЗЫ: простите, что влез вообще со своим комментарием пробараки, но мне стало обидно за страну, из комментария, мне показалось, можно сделать вывод, что русские в основном жили в бараках, что неправда, а так же что сейчас ситуация лучше чем тогда с жильём, что опять неправда.

хД)

[chaosmalefic.livejournal.com]

кто возьмет билетов много, тому на кладбище дорога

[surkova.livejournal.com]

the first quotation is translated already, but I want to add that a water pump is here just for rhyme :) symbolized absolutely unnecessary thing for Soviet people, that's why it's funny :)

"сортир" is another name for toilet, but it isn't used very often now and by people who don't have a high level of education. comes from French language.

[khathi.livejournal.com]

Not just any toilet -- it's specifically an outhouse. You know, a country-type one, with a heart or half-moon hole in the door, with separated ladies and gentlemen halves.

[vovse-ne.livejournal.com]

Like this one: http://andreygushin.ru/ice_media/33849b0b950ad30755680f981401249b/sortir.jpg

[vovse-ne.livejournal.com]

Or maybe this one: http://images-5.moifoto.ru/big/1/242/2059809wfd.jpg?1244887266

[ars-longa.livejournal.com]

I use it a lot. At first it was for fun, now it became a habit. A sort of стёб (now i wish I knew how adequately translate this word in English! I tried to explain the concept to some of my English-speaking friends and failed miserably).

[racoonbear.livejournal.com]

First one was funny, 'cause it was a parody on senseless and stupid charity advertisment. They were boring, they were, actually, almost mandatory.

[mikhist.livejournal.com]

+1. Actually, right after saying a phrase "про водокачку", that character explicitly states that she buys lottery tickets not for the prises:)

[lara86.livejournal.com]

Many thanks to all of you.
I need these explanations for my exam :))
Everything's clear

[alamar.livejournal.com]

The fun thing in the second one: The speaker is arranging a plan and, therefore, tries to sound smart; but he fails.
Ultimately he's an early example of Captain Obvious here.

On the first one

[pinky-the-cow.livejournal.com]

Tickets in question are the lottery ones. USSR had a history of such forcible money collecting from the residents. By means of "административный ресурс" people had been made to spend some part of their salary on the lottery tickets or state loan stocks. Remember the scene continuation: ~"If they don't buy them, we'll cut the household gas off".
The joke behind the phrase in the movie lies within the poor quality of the slogan. Arrogant, bereft of talent people… It is a satire example, actually.
Although people were probably beyond the point of changing and they simply would laugh and move on.

Regarding the Russian I also would note that "водокачка" is not a term used to define something close to a modern water pump ("pump" = "насос"). It may pretty well mean old type waterworks-like facilities, but rather some obsolete water pumping device comes to mind. A none too useful thing.