On Language

Last night I spent 10 minutes laughing my ass off at the Russian pronunciation of "Huckleberry Finn" so I thought I'd devote this entry to the idiosyncracies of language.

Huckleberry Finn, or "GACK-lll-beRRRRRRy FEEEEEEN" as the Russians pronounce it, was one of the few American-ized words I struggled to understand. Generally, words from business and technology like "kompyooterrrr" and "biznizmen" are self-explanatory. The Russians tend to turn an "h" into a "g." To wit, Guckleberry rather than Huckleberry. Gepatit rather than hepatitis.

But then I said "Geminwaaaaaay" to Russify Hemingway, and they all looked at my blankly. So in English, I said "Hemingway. Ernest Hemingway." To which they all said "AAaaaaah. Heminwaaaaaay."

WTF? Now they suddenly can pronounce the H? This is not so normal.

Speaking of normal....

My other favorite Russian word: normal'no, or normal. It's used for everything. "How's the weather?" "Normal." "How was your trip?" "Normal." "What did you think of the movie? "It was normal." "What was the restaurant like?" "Well, normal." What, as opposed to abnormal?

Obviously, normal is more along the lines of OK, fine, decent. But it's so similar to the American "normal" that sometimes it's easier to interpret it as the American "normal" and think their response is funny. And when I say "not normal," everyone is like "Ooooooooohhhhh." It's a pretty strong statement to make.

And the other night a question about "maniacs" came up. No, not like "She's a maniac, maaaa-niac on the floor. And she's dancin' like she's never danced befooooooore." As in, "Are there a lot of maniacs in American like we see in the movies? Yannow, the kind that seem normal (there's the word again) but then go kill and maim women in run-down motels in the middle of nowhere?"

Hollywood has really made my work cut out for me here. I've got to explain things like Texas chili (We see JR Ewing on Dallas eating chili, what is that?), come up with statistics like what proportion of the American population is an axe-murderer, and what real prostitutes look like (yes, Pretty Woman. I explained to them what Baltimore City crack hos looked like, which was not too terribly much in line with Julia Roberts).

So amidst fighting my way through language idiosyncracies, I strive to more accurately report about Life In America. After all, we don't all live the lifestyle of JR Ewing and Richard Gere!