The Off Topic Topic

[celedhring]

Today I learned that the French word for lawyer (avocat) is also the French word for avocado.  I'm not sure, but I think this may reveal a profound truth about French civilization.

They're pretty close in Catalan (advocat/alvocat) and many people mix up both words. The result is that you see many fruit stores with signs selling lawyers.

[celedhring]

So, a Catalan bishop - ultraconservative dude, in favor of gay therapy, performed exorcisms, and shit - has recently resigned his post. He's been caught in a relationship with a divorced erotica writer.   

[Josquius]

A man one would hope?

[celedhring]

A woman. Apparently her books deal with sadism and religion quite a bit, too. 

[The Brain]

A Catholic bishop caught having sex with an adult. Unacceptable to the Church.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah, it is really noticeable that Russian uses a lot of foreign words for the more complicated/modern subjects; perhaps a consequence of being behind the curve for several centuries 

Though English also borrows words at a formidable rate or forms new ones from Greek/Latin roots.......maybe Russian is not so different.

Yeah for sure on English as equally omnivorous. I think there's also something of the people inventing/using loan words. So lots of our Greek/Latin words come in the Renaissance to describe modern concepts/thoughts - but the writers and thinkers thought of themselves as the equals to and in conversation with the classical world (while they'd consigned Anglo-Saxon England to the dark ages). So a Greek/Latin word does something (and says something about the user) that an Old English adaption can't.

I imagine it's similar with Russian - using English/German/French as sources for 19th century modernisation.

Most famous Russian loan word for us is probably вокзал (vokzal) for train station from Vauxhall station.

[Savonarola]

"Aguacate" is how it's said in Spain as well, never ever heard "Palta" in my whole life.

Food slang for testicles over here is "eggs" rather than avocados. Non food related slang is "balls" instead.

Thanks, I should have remembered "Huevos" from Hemingway.  I think that's about half the dialog in "For Whom the Bell Tolls."

[DGuller]

Testicles are eggs in Russian as well, which frankly makes more sense than balls, given their shape.

[Agelastus]

advogado/advogada is Portuguese for lawyer too. Surprised Russian is similar. Does Russian have a lot of Latin words?

It has a fair amount of words with Latin roots, and it also borrowed a lot of foreign words (usually French).  If a concept was introduced to Russia in the last few centuries, it probably has a foreign name for it.

I think most of the French terms in modern Russian entered the language in the Eighteenth Century - for most of the time between Peter the Great and the Napoleonic Wars the Russian Aristocracy probably spoke French more often than they spoke Russian as it was the main language spoken in Court IIRC as well as being the international language of diplomacy in Europe at the time.

[Duque de Bragança]

advogado/advogada is Portuguese for lawyer too. Surprised Russian is similar. Does Russian have a lot of Latin words?

It has a fair amount of words with Latin roots, and it also borrowed a lot of foreign words (usually French).  If a concept was introduced to Russia in the last few centuries, it probably has a foreign name for it.

I think most of the French terms in modern Russian entered the language in the Eighteenth Century - for most of the time between Peter the Great and the Napoleonic Wars the Russian Aristocracy probably spoke French more often than they spoke Russian as it was the main language spoken in Court IIRC as well as being the international language of diplomacy in Europe at the time.

Da!  Roads turned to streets in Moscow may be  chaussée or rather "shosseh" approximatively transliterated. Think of calçada in Portugues or calzada in Castilian.

As for aguacate, cojones is way more common, though considered as vulgar, so still common in common parlance in Spain. 

As for avocado in Portuguese, it's abacate, through Castilian I guess so not too far from the original nahuatl.
Lawyer is advogado, as said earlier.

[The Larch]

Testicles are eggs in Russian as well, which frankly makes more sense than balls, given their shape.

And frailty. 

[Maladict]

advogado/advogada is Portuguese for lawyer too. Surprised Russian is similar. Does Russian have a lot of Latin words?

It has a fair amount of words with Latin roots, and it also borrowed a lot of foreign words (usually French).  If a concept was introduced to Russia in the last few centuries, it probably has a foreign name for it.

I think most of the French terms in modern Russian entered the language in the Eighteenth Century - for most of the time between Peter the Great and the Napoleonic Wars the Russian Aristocracy probably spoke French more often than they spoke Russian as it was the main language spoken in Court IIRC as well as being the international language of diplomacy in Europe at the time.

Same for Dutch. Peter the Great took a lot of nautical terms back to Russia.

[Syt]

Testicles are eggs in Russian as well, which frankly makes more sense than balls, given their shape.

German, too. As in this famous interview with Oliver Kahn after a bad Bayern match where he was asked what was lacking:

https://youtu.be/JriQQkxWI9o

"Eier. Ich sag ja, wir brauchen Eier."

[Razgovory]

Testicles are eggs in Russian as well, which frankly makes more sense than balls, given their shape.

Testicles aren't eggs!  Quit messing with my head!

[The Brain]

Can I offer you a testicle in this trying time?