Archives for: May 2009, 28
Сороконожка
May 28th, 2009 by DonI have never had this conversation in Russian, but I can imagine having it:
| — Боря, как перевести на русский «centipede»? | “Boris, how do you translate ‘centipede’ into Russian?” |
| — «Сороконожка». | “‘Сороконожка.’” |
| — А «millipede»? | “And what about ‘millipede’?” |
| — Тоже «Сороконожка». | “That's also ‘Сороконожка.’” |
| — Правда? Как русские их отличают друга от друга? | “Really? How do Russians distinguish the one from the other?” |
| — Разве их нужно отличaть? | “Do you really need to tell them apart?” |
| — Ещё бы! «Centipedes» больно кусаются, а «millipedes» не кусаются вообще. | “And how! Centipedes have a painful bite, and millipedes don't bite at all.” |
Being from the crazy American West where little ol’ ladies own pistols and any self-respecting plant has thorns and a self-respecting river should be dry, I seem to have always known the words centipede and millipede. The difference is vital. A millipede you can drop down the back of your friend's blouse, and she'll squirm and shout and hate you for a week, but she won't go to the hospital. If you drop a centipede down the back of your friend's blouse, the centipede will bite like crazy, and she will want to go to the hospital and will hate you forever.
The stem сорок- means forty. The stem нож- means leg/foot, and the -ка suffix makes it a noun. Thus сороконожка literally means forty-footer. Cool, huh? Russians apply the word to any creepy-crawly that has a whole bunch of legs. There's a more bookish word that has the same meaning, which is многоножка, which means many-footer. We have a calque of that word in English, myriapod, but I've only heard entomologists use it. Certainly ordinary people in the US don't know that word. There is another word, сколопендра (borrowed from Latin scolopendra) which means centipede exclusively. Here are some sample sentences:
| Многоножки De Blainville — сапрофаги, питающиеся в почве растительными остатками (Russian Wikipedia) | The De Blainville millipedes are saprophagous, feeding on plant remains in the soil. |
| Известны случаи нападения гигантской сколопендры на птиц, ящериц и жаб. (Russian Wikipedia) | Giant centipedes have been known to attack birds, lizards and toads. |
| В Крыму есть популяции только самок сколопендр, они размножаются партеногенетически, без участия самцов. (source) | In the Crimea there are centipede populations that are exclusively female; they reproduce parthenogenetically, without the help of males. |
| Эта сороконожка не кусается. Она — твой друг. |
Эта сороконожка кусается. Она — не твой друг. |
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| Photo courtesy of Wikipedia | Photo courtesy of Wikipedia |
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