Sunday, November 7, 2010

A Proper Russian Send-off, Pt. 2

Idi v zhopu - lit. "go into an ass".  Equivalent to "go to hell".  Soviet society enjoyed state-enforced secularity, so normal ways of telling people off - "may demons take you" or "go you to the devil" - were not exactly in vogue.  Hence, a non-religious, non-superstitious bad place to send people to. Whose ass is never specified. Hence, when translating the expression into English, the idea of the Collective Ass, appropriate to a collectivized society, is introduced.  "Go burrow in the asshole of mankind" would make a pretty sweet neologism.

No comments:

Post a Comment