Hi, Roy!  Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:

 RW>>   Russian cosmonaunt: They're just looking for the last
 RW>>   drop in their Vodka bottle.

 ak>>>  What a love for astronomy!" Russian cosmonaunt: "They
 ak>>>  just drink straight from the bottles."


 AH>    Hmm.  I wonder who else can find the spelling error
 AH>    which Roy copied from Alexander's joke... probably
 AH>    without retyping... and which I didn't notice until
 AH>    just now?

                               [...]

RW>  A perfect example of assuming that the msger knows how
RW>  to translate and spell a native term.


          Ah, well... you know what some folks say about a$$uming!  Translation
 is as much an art as it is a science....  ;-)

          AFAIC Alexander posts these jokes as exercises in translation, on the
 understanding that there may be a few rough spots, and invites suggestions
from other readers as to possible improvements.  It's a long-standing tradition
 here in ENGLISH_TUTOR for the regulars to post their own translations & ask
directly or indirectly for help.  I a$$ume when Alexander posts such items that
 he would like us to proofread his work, even if he neglected to say "F2EP"...
[chuckle].



RW>  I should have used the English term of 'astronaut' instead.


          As native speakers of English you & I would probably say "astronaut".
 Although some sources define "cosmonaut" simply as "astronaut", the majority
of my usual references define it as "a Russian astronaut".


_ _ _ O / _ _ C_U_T_ H_E_R_E_ _ _ _
      O \

             * There's a wonderful example of the power & beauty of the English
 language, IMHO.  While we cheerfully adopt new words from all over the place
we don't abandon the old ones.  Either way "-naut", meaning "sailor"... which
came to us & to Alexander via the ancient Greeks... has the same spelling. 
When one has made the connection derivatives like "nautical" are fairly
straightforward.

_ _ _ O / _ _ C_U_T_ H_E_R_E_ _ _ _
      O \


          "Astronaut" is certainly in more common use where I come from.  It is
 less specific than "cosmonaut", and thus we may have to qualify it
sometimes... but I wouldn't go so far as to say "cosmonaut" is incorrect.  I
guess Alexander is more familiar with the Russian word.  Okay.  When a Russian
author is poking fun at his own countrymen he may not make the same stylistic
decisions you or I would.  It's important to identify the narrator as Russian
so everyone else can relax & enjoy the story without looking for hidden razor
blades and/or worrying about who might say "Egad, Sir!  You've besmirched the
hono(u)r of my country!" as we've seen people do in other echoes... [wry grin].

          The advantage of using "astronaut" is that there is no confusion over
 what the author meant; the disadvantage is that we may need to use at least
one more word to indicate the country.  OTOH, the advantage of using
"cosmonaut" is its economy; the disadvantage is that it may mean different
things to different people.  If a cosmonaut = a Russian astronaut, "Russian
cosmonaut" is a serious redundancy which I'd (basically) treat as an error. 
Until there's more general agreement as to the definition of "cosmonaut",
however, I'll let it pass.  :-))


BTW...

          I enjoyed this discussion & I hope other folks did too.  Thankyou for
 bringing the matter to my attention, at any rate....  :-)




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
 * Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)