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Monday, November 16, 2009

Gogol-Mogol and the "M" Trick

Some people like to have a гоголь-моголь (GO-gol MO-gol, a raw egg beaten with sugar) for breakfast, some people don't. I stay away from raw eggs but I'm very interested in the name of the drink. Repeating a word with an "m" instead of the first consonant is a funny little habit that you hear a lot when you talk with people from the Caucasus region. Think шашлык-машлык (barbecue-marbecue) or чай-май (tea-mea). It doesn't seem to mean anything in particular when people do the "m" trick; it just injects a feeling of relaxation into the conversation.

I usually hear Armenians do the чай-май thing on food words, but the other day a Russian relative who grew up in Tbilisi, Georgia was over for tea and he did the "m" trick on a word that had nothing to do with food. He was talking about construction materials and I sat up straight in my seat when he did it. I was too shy to pull out my notebook and write it down at the moment and now, of course, I've forgotten it - a fitting punishment.

Saturday, November 7, 2009

Mamalyga

At lunch today I put cornbread on the table. My father-in-law put on his glasses and exclaimed "It's mamalyga! Where did you find it?"

I told him it was from Trader Joe's.

Mamalyga is polenta. I believe the name mamalyga is used in lots of places from Hungary to Georgia. Here's a very appetizing picture of people eating mamalyga with delicious condiments in Abkhazia. Apparently the name comes from "melega," an old Italian word for corn (or sorghum, depending on where you look).

Sunday, November 1, 2009

POSBON, the whole story

I did find out what the name of the funeral home ПОСБОН stands for: Производственное объединение специализированного бытового обслуживания населения

Here comes the full translation: Production Group for Specialized Life Services for the Public

Life Services?

Быт (life) is a strange word in Russian. It means everyday life, as in slogging through. Small towns still tend to have a Дом Быта, a building full of small businesses that cater to those annoying tasks every human faces: taking your clothes to get dry-cleaned, buying a new extension cord, getting your picture taken for a passport application, buying the specific, hard-to-find brand of cat food your vet recommends, getting the sole glued back on your shoe, etc.

Now that I re-read the above paragraph, I think I prefer the funeral homes that advertise as Ритуальные Услуги (ritual services).