Aberrant instances of accusative case

[llz.livejournal.com]

Hi guys,

First a brief introduction. I started learning Russian and joined this community late in high school, around 2004, in the US where I'm from. Now I am doing a European Masters program in conference interpreting.. yes from Russian (and Spanish) into English :) I want to thank this community for all its help and give encouragement to everyone learning (which I still am!) I never thought I'd get to this point. The road to fluency is long, but you can do it!

Now down to business. There are some unusual forms of accusative case I never properly learned and not sure how to Google them:

Это их иллюзия, которая разбивается о реальную жизнь.
Они бьются головой об стену. (I recalled this from memory, might be wrong.)

I surmise that "о + (object in accusative case)" means beating against something but would like a more official explanation.

And:

У меня не с кем разговаривать под бокал вино.
Мы танцевали до утра под рок-музыку.

Here I can guess that "под + (object in accusative case)" loosely means "with the accompaniment of _____ setting the milieu"

I have another question about imperfect vs. perfect verbs but will save that for another post.

Thanks in advance.

Comments

[r-w.livejournal.com]

I would say "об" is a colloquial form if there is no following vowel. We can even ape those low-colloquial forms: "об чём", "об нём". On the other hand, one can say "о стену, о стекло, о землю (hence Оземь)", and it would be more noble and literary.
However, "как о(б) стен(к)у горох" и "как рыба об лёд" are idioms with almost obligatory "об".

[freakyzoid.livejournal.com]

you may have replied to me about that by mistake, because I didnt say anything about the use of "о" and "об". But I was thinking about that, so it might not be a mistake at all :) Also, I don't see any other comment about that.
Anyway, although it is preferable to say "о" instead of "об" in most cases, there are some words that don't go with "o". Like "об пол".
I believe that idioms have this obligatory "об" because spoken language of simple people is the origin of most idioms and proverbs. Then they just become cliche and are used as they are.

[r-w.livejournal.com]

Not only thinking, you were typing, actually:
There are actually not many verbs used with о/об/обо + accusative.

[freakyzoid.livejournal.com]

Yes, I did type that, but I didn't quite mean the difference between о and об with different nouns, pronouns and cases.
I just meant that о + accusative refers to someting moving toward some other object and interacting with it in a specific way. Not many actions are performed in such a manner, and I really can't think of more than those already mentioned in this discussion.

UPD: This conversation seems to have inspired me, and I managed to think of one more verb with a meanung that has not been mentioned. Облокотиться о перила. To lean one's elbows on a railing.