По (часть вторая)
We previously discussed the use of the preposition по in the sense of “on the subject of.” Another common meaning of по is to indicate the means by which information is communicated, in which case it is usually translated as “on” or “via” in English; in that meaning по governs the dative case:
| — Ты читаешь газеты? — Нет, теперь я узнаю свежие новости по Интернету. |
“Do you read the newspapers?” “No, nowadays I get the latest news on the internet.” |
| — Как ты пользуешься Интернетом? По кабелю? — Нет, по спутнику. |
“How do you use the internet? By cable?” “No, by satellite.” |
| разговор по телефону | a telephone conversation |
| — Мой парень вчера сказал, что он больше не любит меня. — Ой, ужасно. Но по крайней он это сказал тебе прямо в лицо. — Нет, в лицо не сказал. Он это сказал по телефону. — Сволочь! Какой он трус! |
“My boyfriend told me yesterday that he doesn't love me anymore.” “Oh, that's awful. But at least he told you to your face.” “No, he didn't tell my to my face. He told me on the phone.” “The bastard! He is such a coward!” |
| Если увидишь аварию в Америке, звони по телефону 911. | If you see an accident in America, call 911. |
Don's rant of the day: the idea that we are supposed to capitalize the word Интернет is completely assinine. I refuse to do it in English, no matter what the current stylistic guides say. Nowadays the internet is a generic means of communication, not a capitalizable company like MCI. Lower-case makes sense. But if you are someone trying to get a job somewhere and not get rejected because of ignorami professing current political correctness, then capitalize the word.
But in Russian I'll capitalize it cuz I don't wanna seem like an ignant furriner.
1 comment
“Интернет” (only capitalized as a single word) is probably one of the words with the norm being way behind, and contrary to the common usage. Even in magazines it is mostly written in lower case. My provider’s site always capitalizes the word. So the current situation somewhat resembles the capitalization of “вы", which is used only in very formal writing. The difference is, the dictionaries recommend to capitalize single “Интернет” in all situations. You may check some computer magazines to see that this rule is widely ignored. LKI and UPGRADE (www.lki.ru and www.upweek.ru) use small case. BYTE Russia (http://www.bytemag.ru/) uses capitalized version, yet the magazine always capitalizes it even in hyphenated compounds, which is contrary to the same norm. HARD’n'SOFT (http://www.hardnsoft.ru/) uses capitalization. As far as I can tell from my experience, capitalization is very rare in common usage (blogs/ forums/ messengers/ skype). I guess, periodicals are just a bit different in how much their proof-readers force this artificial rule (which is going to poof soon, as even the language experts say)
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