vacation wrap-up

( curling spoilers for people who have not yet seen or heard the results of the women's world championships )

to answer invader_jim's question:  the japanese players say "yes" and "whoa" just like everybody else.  but the norwegians and the swedes do not, i discovered.  (norway wasn't in that draw the other day when i mentioned the prevalence of "whoa", and sweden was far away and i couldn't hear them.)  they say things in their respective languages.

russian fans say маладцы, девшята! -- maladtsy, devshjata! -- which means, approximately, you go, grrls!

маладец -- maladjets (and that j is pronounced like the english letter y) -- is a noun that means attaboy or similar, and takes the plural often and the feminine sometimes.  (i mean, i've heard it.  but i also understand that a girl who has done something impressive may be as likely to be called маладец as маладца -- maladtsa.  native russian speakers are encouraged to comment on this.)

the second word is much more interesting.  the word for girl is девушка -- devushka -- and its plural is девушки -- devushki.  there is a word, ребëнок -- rebjonok -- that means baby (like, literally, a baby, an infant, a child), but which in its plural form ребята -- rebjata -- means kids in a casual sense, and which if used to address a group of young people could indeed mean hey, you guys.  (russian uses a whole different word, дети -- djeti -- for children.  go figure.)  and there are several other words, all describing young creatures, that have this -ëнок ending in the singular and thus -ята in the plural.  but as far as i know, there is no such word as *девшëнок -- *devshjonok -- which is what the singular would have to be in order to get девшята in the plural.  in conclusion:  Russian speakers have done a little back-formation-y kind of thing there, which is why i glossed the word as grrls up above instead of girls.

AND:  i noticed it!  not that i didn't hear it, like, a lot -- but there was a lot of russian being spoken, and i didn't catch most of it.  (i did catch when two of the coach-or-fan-types came out of the hotel to get on the bus in the morning and said часто нежарко, да? -- chasto nezharko, da? -- sort of not-warm, isn't it?  it was maybe 40 degrees, and i'd have gone all-out and called it "cool".  heh.  those crazy russians.)

i had a hellish trip back here today, but if i rant about it now i'll just make myself cranky again.  maybe tomorrow.

also:  sore throat and tickly ears, i.e. beginning of a head cold.  woke up this way yesterday. FEH.