Re: conlangers of the world, create!

On Wed, 2 May 2001, Raymond Brown wrote:

> At 10:19 am -0700 2/5/01, Frank George Valoczy wrote:
> [snip]
> >
> >In my mind the USSR and the rest of the "Bloc of Peace" (as we were taught
> >in school there...) will always be associated with this slogan...
>
> Yes, but here the slogan doesn't carry the same association - if anything
> it harks back in some people's minds to the idealistic socialism of late
> 19th century, before the Bolsheviks perverted such words.
>
> We knew the slogan - Workers of the world, unite! - as schoolboys & barely
> thought of the USSR at all.  But we also changed the words slightly:
> "Shirkers of the world, unite!" - Oh, happy days  :)
Haha, that's funny and true too. Workday in communist Hungary: coffee
break from  to noon, lunch from noon to one, work for an hour or two then
coffe break till 6, then go home...

>
> >>
> >> >that's not right and should be
> >> >"of all countries" as Russian has /proletarij vseh stran, sojedinnates'/ =
> >> >"workers of all countries, unite"
> >>
> >> Yes, but _proletarij_ are surely "members of the proletariate" which is by
> >> no means synonymous with "workers" (except, maybe, in Marxist propaganda).
> >>
> >
> >Yes, you are correct; but it would also sound a bit dumb to say
> >"rabotnitsi vseh stran..."
>
> I guess no more dumb than "Proletarians of all countries...." would sound
> in English, in fact.
>
agreed =)

> >> BTW ain't the Russian for "worker" _rabotnik_ ? Or have I misremembered?
> >> My Russian's a bit rusty, I'm afraid
> >
> >Yes.
>
> Good - my memory still holds at my advanced age  :)
>
> Ray.
>
> =========================================
> A mind which thinks at its own expense
> will always interfere with language.
>                    [J.G. Hamann 1760]
> =========================================
>
-------ferko
Ferenc Gy. Valoczy

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