The Coryphaeus of Science
The Coryphaeus of Science summons you to the axe, Trotskyite!
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“Who could have known, that little Gray neck had acquired a boyfriend.”
And delightfully, this page is now the top Google hit for “Coryphaeus of Science”.
Beautiful.
“Who could have known, that little Gray neck had acquired a boyfriend.”
Did Russian really need to steal the word “boyfriend”? (The second last word in the Cyrillic is “boyfriendom”.)
Troodon says:
“Who could have known, that little Gray neck had acquired a boyfriend.”
To explain this a little further: this refers to a classic Russian children’s story about a young duck named “Little Gray-neck” — or, actually, the Russian name is more literally, “Gray Little-neck,” but “Little Grayneck” does sound better in English. Anyway, in the story, Little Grayneck is unable to fly south for the winter with all the other ducks after being injured in a narrow escape from a hungry fox.
The children’s story was made into a 20-minute animated short in 1948, and you can see it (divided into three clips) on YouTube. Here’s the URL for the first part:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0grM0XPDmPo
If that doesn’t work, you can cut and paste the Russian title Серая Шейка to do a YouTube search. It’s a cute and simple story and easy to follow even if you don’t speak Russian.
“Did Russian really need to steal the word “boyfriend”?”
Allen: You’re correct that the Russian in this case uses the word “boifrend,” borrowed directly from English, instead of a more authentically Russian word. Some Russians use borrowed English words like this for the same reason that (for example) white suburban teens in America use terms borrowed from black ghetto culture: because they want to sound hip.
I would guess that whoever made the original Russian “LOLkot” in this case might’ve chosen “boifrend” for humorous effect: the slangy, fashion-conscious, foreign sound of the word clashes with the old-fashioned, homegrown sentimentalism of the “Little Grayneck” story.
Following up on my explanation about “Little Grayneck”: I was able to find the Russian text of the original 1893 story online, and the 1948 cartoon linked above actually makes a number of changes to the plot.
For instance, in the original, the duck’s wing remains permanently crippled, and salvation eventually comes to her in the form of a little old man who takes her home to be a pet for his granddaughters.
In the cartoon, however, the duck’s wing heals and she regains her ability to fly with encouragement from other animals in the forest — including a young hare who looks SUSPICIOUSLY like Thumper from Walt Disney’s “Bambi” (made in 1942, six years before the Soviet cartoon… hmmm!)
But one element that the story and the cartoon have in common is that Little Grayneck keeps getting chased around by the very same fox that originally crippled her wing. And thus the joke in this photo is that if Little Grayneck had found herself a big, studly Canadian goose as a “boifrend,” she wouldn’t need a little old man or the hares to rescue her from the fox.
(Instead, she’d be going around like “My boyfriend’s QUACK and you’re gonna be in trouble — hey la, hey la, my boyfriend’s QUACK…”)
::applause::
Thanks to all for the translations, but especially Throbert for the detailed cultural/literary perspective.
I once had to translate a pun for a friend who spoke English quite well (better than some native-English speakers!) but didn’t have the cultural background to understand what the pun was getting at. I eventually explained it and she laughed, but it was one of the more frustrating half-hours of both our lives.. I’m impressed by how easily you’re able to distill both the literal meaning and the cultural associations in these.
Keep up the good work, everyone!
We, ugly Americans, sure do love to laugh – so long as its @ others’ expense. Someone hx0rz this site already. Lame.
Yay, Harold, we missed you buddy!
Thanks for the nice words, elayne. Just to be clear, it’s not that I necessarily understand Russian culture so well — and I certainly am not fluent in the Russian language! But I do know the language well enough that I can do Google searches in Russian… and thus I can sometimes pass for an expert! But it’s still a challenge for me, albeit an enjoyable challenge, like finishing a hard crossword puzzle.
Another follow-up thought:
Right near the beginning of the Russian caption, you’ll notice that weird Cyrillic letter that sort of looks like a candelabra: Ж
It’s pronounced “zh” — like the “s” in English “treasure” or the French “j” in “je ne sais quoi.”
But here it’s not just a letter — it’s functioning as an “emphatic particle” that adds stress and emotional impact to whatever word comes before it, which in this case is “kto?” (who?).
Saying “kto zh znal?” instead of just “kto znal?” changes it from “who knew?” to something more like “Who-the-heck knew?!”
Or, since this is a Яolcat, we could even translate it as:
“OMG, who knew that Little Greyneck got herself a boyfriend!?!?”
I like the way the Trotskyite is grinning as he runs away.
I never grow weary of ROLcats.
Is the Coryphaeus of Science anything like the Pompatus of Love?
haha, nice one regina
Haha, down with Stalinism!
http://www.workerspower.com/index.php?id=168,1761,0,0,1,0
Throbert – can’t believe no-one’s pulled you up on the gratuitous Fiery Furnaces usage yet
[...] sinister fascists. They also break the law, and rape and pillage. And new evidence has emerged that they acted as Stalinist enforcers. Indeed, it was a shared loathing for these scum from the pond that brought me and the darling [...]
I’ve been chased by a bloody goose. I know what the fox is going through, it’s terrifying..
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