One of the meanings of the word охота is desire. The word can be used predicatively, in which case the person who has the desire is in the dative.

Oddly enough, one of the uses of this word is to express the idea of disbelief and surprise that we express in English with sentences like “What the heck did you do that for?” or “Did you really mean to do that?” Examples:

Last week Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. The Obama administration wants to “push the reset button” on relations with Russia, and someone had the cutesy idea of presenting Lavrov with a large button with the word “reset” printed on it in Russian and English. The word they printed on it was перегрузка, which, alas, does not normally mean reset. It can mean “cargo transfer” or “overload,” but it can't mean “reset.” (Lavrov said it meant “overcharge,” which probably caused a lot of confusion. It doesn't mean charging too much money.)

Secretary Clinton said “We worked hard to get the right Russian word.” Oh, really? You worked hard to get one word right? And you still failed? If you had asked one single Russian person, you could have had it right. Would that really have been so much work? If they worked really hard and still couldn't get a single word of Russian right, I'm not sure there is much hope for improvement over the previous eight years of pathetic foreign policy blunders.

One might think that had former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice been involved, she might have caught the error since she spoke some Russian. The American press has often stated that she spoke fluent Russian, but quotes in the Russian press indicate that her spoken Russian was only mediocre. Would she have caught an error in a non-political word? Probably not.

Okay, now that I have had my obligatory moment of cynicism, there is a kinder angle. One word for reset is перезагрузка. All it would take was a typographical error of leaving out the middle -за- to end up with перегрузка. An embarrassing error, yes, and a sign that the cutesy prop was likely part of a last minute effort, not an actual bit of careful diplomacy. That said, I think I can still give the current administration the benefit of the doubt.

Photo of Clinton's reset button. To add insult to incompetence, the Russian word was printed in English letters. How tacky is that?

Follow-up, Tuesday, March 10, 2009: I have now heard from several sources that some Russians will use перегрузить instead of перезагрузить in the meaning of “reboot a computer”; the corresponding noun form would be перегрузка instead of перезагрузка. Other more stylistically careful Russians respond and say, “Oh, no, you can't ever say that in that meaning.” I place this dissonance in the same category as the English error, “I itched the back of my hand until it turned red.” Standard English requires “scratched” not “itched” in this context, but I have heard (less educated) native speakers of English say it. To my ear it sounds absolutely wrong, but some people say it. So the appearance of “peregruzka” on Clinton's rest button may have had one of two sources: a typo for перезагрузка, or her informant might have been someone who thought, “Well, sometimes we say it перегрузка” and just made a lousy stylistic choice.

Follow-up, Tuesday, March 19, 2009: Amusing spoofs on the button are appearing all over the web.

Follow-up, Saturday, October 31, 2015: here's another article that references the incident.

The other day an anonymous querent wondered about the correct way to say “Thanks for the salmon!” The answer is: that depends.

If you mean that you are grateful for an entire salmon, then the word you want is a masculine word ending in a soft sign: лосось. If you mean that you are grateful for a filet of the fish which you intend to consume as food, then the word you want is a feminine word: лососина. Thus:

Actually лосось can also mean simply the flesh of the animal, but every once in a while you will meet some pedant who will want you to distinguish the two words.

In the US one associates salmon particularly with the the states of Alaska, Washington, and Oregon. In Russia Камчатка is the major нерестилище of salmon. A нерестилище “spawning ground” is a place where fish lay their eggs.

Let's think about the verb готовить/приготовить, which conjugates like this:

The verb pair готовить/приготовить has a couple meanings, the first of which is “to prepare.” The person/thing who is being prepared appears in the accusative case, and the thing for which they are being prepared appears in the dative case after the preposition к:

The second meaning of the verb is “to cook”:

The Russian word for a male virgin is девственник, and a female virgin is девственница. The provenance of the word is obvious — дева means maid or maiden, one who is presumably devoid of sexual experience.

True story: on my second trip to Russia I was having a conversation with Лидия, a homely Russian instructor with a poofy hairdo whose mannerisms were the most prudish you can imagine. During the conversation I couldn't remember the word for virgin, so in the most tactful way possible I asked «Как называется мужик, который никогда не имел интимных отношений?» “What do you call a guy who has never had intimate relations?” Without a moment's hesitation she looked me straight in the eyes, batted her lashes and replied «Импотент».