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Re: Pythagorean trousers
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Re: [NABOKV-L] Pythagorean trousersSKB: are there any Russian puns here we need to know about?
Stan: not puns (Bely used to call Mme Stanevich, one of the first Russian women who wore trousers, "Mme Shtanevich"), but a few instances when the word was used by Russian writers (I quote from my Russian "In vino veritas" article): ср. Бунин: «Розанов... заявил однажды: “Литература – мои штаны, что хочу, то в них и делаю”»;[1] ср. Маяковский: «Облако в штанах»; он же: «Я достаю из широких штанин»;[2] ср. Есенин: «Знать, оттого так хочется и мне, / Задрав штаны, Бежать за комсомолом»;[3] ср. Горький, слова Елены, последней возлюбленной Самгина, о министре Макарове: «я этого гуся без штанов видела у одной подруги-француженки, а ему поручили Россией командовать»;[4] ср. Ильф и Петров, слова Остапа Бендера о Рио де Жанейро: «Полтора миллиона человек, и все поголовно в белых штанах»;[5] они же, надпись на дверях магазина: «Штанов нет»[6]. One also remembers the French epigraph to Chapter One of Pushkin's Egyptian Nights: — Quel est cet homme?— На c'est un bien grand talent, il fait de sa voix tout ce qu'il veut.— Il devrait bien, madame, s'en faire une culotte.
Also, for your collection: "Talent?" shouted Koldunov. "I'll show you talent! I'll show you such talent that you'll start cooking applesauce in your pants!" (Lik)
Just as юбка (skirt) is often used in the sense "female person" (бегать за каждой юбкой, etc.), штаны is sometimes used metonymically.
A close synonym of штаны is брюки. Брюки = бирюк (lone wolf; unsociable person), the word VN used in "Волшебник" (The Enchanter) in regard to the protagonist.
I agree that the "mnemonical" verse is rather absurd. No wonder one remembers those verses better than the rules they are supposed to help one memorize (although I still know the Pythagorean theorem).
Alexey Sklyarenko
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] «Автобиографические заметки» (1950).
[2] «Стихи о советском паспорте» (1929).
[3] «Русь уходящая» (1924).
[4] «Жизнь Клима Самгина», Часть Четвёртая.
[5] «Золотой телёнок», Глава II: «Тридцать сыновей лейтенанта Шмидта».
[6] Там же, Глава VII: «Сладкое бремя славы».
----- Original Message -----
From: Stan Kelly-Bootle
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Sunday, July 18, 2010 1:40 AM
Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] Pythagorean trousers
On 09/07/2010 21:14, "Alexey Sklyarenko" <skylark05@MAIL.RU> wrote:
When Russian school children learn it [Pythagoras Theorem], they are made to memorize this couplet:
Пифагоровы штаны
на все стороны равны
(All sides of Pythagorean trousers are equal).
Alexey: are there any Russian puns here we need to know about? As written, the verse is amusing (rather Lewis Carroll or Edward Lear) but doesn’t seem to help mnemonically! Quite the opposite, in fact. The theorem concerns the sides of a right-angled triangle (x-squared + y-squared = hypotenuse-squared) and it’s easy to prove that these three sides cannot ALL be equal in the Euclidean (flat) plane (as specified in the theorem). Interestingly, all three sides can be equal In curved spaces of the kind that Nabokov distrusted.
Trousers (also pants, breeches, breeks, kecks) are also funny in English literature and idioms. You can be caught with them down (Clinton). Rolling up the bottoms is a sign of age (T S Eliot). Dominant wives wear the trousers figuratively (Mrs Bennett). At night, Felix folds them over the back of a chair with proletarian tidiness (a truly Nabokovian, unexpected insight in Despair). The Irish anti-hero improvises: Brian O’Lynn had no breeches to wear, so he got an ould sheepskin to make him a pair; with the woolly side out and the hairy side in, Sure they’re pleasant and cool, sez Brian O’Lynn.
We now have the verb, to trouser. Honest money can be pocketed with a clear conscience, but obscene Bankers’ bonuses are always trousered.
Stan Kelly-Bootle.
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Stan: not puns (Bely used to call Mme Stanevich, one of the first Russian women who wore trousers, "Mme Shtanevich"), but a few instances when the word was used by Russian writers (I quote from my Russian "In vino veritas" article): ср. Бунин: «Розанов... заявил однажды: “Литература – мои штаны, что хочу, то в них и делаю”»;[1] ср. Маяковский: «Облако в штанах»; он же: «Я достаю из широких штанин»;[2] ср. Есенин: «Знать, оттого так хочется и мне, / Задрав штаны, Бежать за комсомолом»;[3] ср. Горький, слова Елены, последней возлюбленной Самгина, о министре Макарове: «я этого гуся без штанов видела у одной подруги-француженки, а ему поручили Россией командовать»;[4] ср. Ильф и Петров, слова Остапа Бендера о Рио де Жанейро: «Полтора миллиона человек, и все поголовно в белых штанах»;[5] они же, надпись на дверях магазина: «Штанов нет»[6]. One also remembers the French epigraph to Chapter One of Pushkin's Egyptian Nights: — Quel est cet homme?— На c'est un bien grand talent, il fait de sa voix tout ce qu'il veut.— Il devrait bien, madame, s'en faire une culotte.
Also, for your collection: "Talent?" shouted Koldunov. "I'll show you talent! I'll show you such talent that you'll start cooking applesauce in your pants!" (Lik)
Just as юбка (skirt) is often used in the sense "female person" (бегать за каждой юбкой, etc.), штаны is sometimes used metonymically.
A close synonym of штаны is брюки. Брюки = бирюк (lone wolf; unsociable person), the word VN used in "Волшебник" (The Enchanter) in regard to the protagonist.
I agree that the "mnemonical" verse is rather absurd. No wonder one remembers those verses better than the rules they are supposed to help one memorize (although I still know the Pythagorean theorem).
Alexey Sklyarenko
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] «Автобиографические заметки» (1950).
[2] «Стихи о советском паспорте» (1929).
[3] «Русь уходящая» (1924).
[4] «Жизнь Клима Самгина», Часть Четвёртая.
[5] «Золотой телёнок», Глава II: «Тридцать сыновей лейтенанта Шмидта».
[6] Там же, Глава VII: «Сладкое бремя славы».
----- Original Message -----
From: Stan Kelly-Bootle
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Sunday, July 18, 2010 1:40 AM
Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] Pythagorean trousers
On 09/07/2010 21:14, "Alexey Sklyarenko" <skylark05@MAIL.RU> wrote:
When Russian school children learn it [Pythagoras Theorem], they are made to memorize this couplet:
Пифагоровы штаны
на все стороны равны
(All sides of Pythagorean trousers are equal).
Alexey: are there any Russian puns here we need to know about? As written, the verse is amusing (rather Lewis Carroll or Edward Lear) but doesn’t seem to help mnemonically! Quite the opposite, in fact. The theorem concerns the sides of a right-angled triangle (x-squared + y-squared = hypotenuse-squared) and it’s easy to prove that these three sides cannot ALL be equal in the Euclidean (flat) plane (as specified in the theorem). Interestingly, all three sides can be equal In curved spaces of the kind that Nabokov distrusted.
Trousers (also pants, breeches, breeks, kecks) are also funny in English literature and idioms. You can be caught with them down (Clinton). Rolling up the bottoms is a sign of age (T S Eliot). Dominant wives wear the trousers figuratively (Mrs Bennett). At night, Felix folds them over the back of a chair with proletarian tidiness (a truly Nabokovian, unexpected insight in Despair). The Irish anti-hero improvises: Brian O’Lynn had no breeches to wear, so he got an ould sheepskin to make him a pair; with the woolly side out and the hairy side in, Sure they’re pleasant and cool, sez Brian O’Lynn.
We now have the verb, to trouser. Honest money can be pocketed with a clear conscience, but obscene Bankers’ bonuses are always trousered.
Stan Kelly-Bootle.
Search the archive Contact the Editors Visit "Nabokov Online Journal"
Visit Zembla View Nabokv-L Policies Manage subscription options
All private editorial communications, without exception, are read by both co-editors.
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/