Changing the Pushkin Affair

Long time ago when Hitler and Stalin were not alive and J23 was not able to save the world, Dr. Who saved two men from committing a grave mistake.....

          On the frosty morning of 8th January 1837 Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin was reading a paper while waiting for his opponent Georges d'Anthès. It was a truth universally acknowledged, that a married man in possession of good reputation, must be in want of preserving it. He didn't know that at this moment a man with a sonic screwdriver was immobilizing his servants and locking all the doors in the estate. 

         Suddenly, Alexander heard the tramp of horses' hooves and run to the door to prepare his gun, only to realize that he was locked. He started knocking and shouting furiously, but the only voice he heard was Georges d'Anthès, urging him to come and fight.  

         Finally, the impatient Frenchmen broke into the house by shooting through every lock in the door he came across as he was striding led by Alexander's desperate voice. Lastly, wasting the last bullet, he managed to get into the Pushkin's room.

"Sir, why did your servants locked all the doors?",  asked breathless Frenchman.

"I have no idea why they did it", answered the Russian.

"Sir, are you ready to duel?"

"Well, of course I am. Let me just take my...", only then did he realise that the pair of pistols that he had prepared were missing. 

"I'm sorry Sir, but, do you, perhaps, have a spare gun?", asked Pushkin.

"I'm very sorry, I don't. My other pistol and the powder gone missing and I wasted all bullets to get here", answered d'Anthès.

"Then, how shall we settle the matter?", asked Pushkin. This whole situation seemed to him hopeless and he wanted to bring it an end in order not to make the matters worse.  

Georges d'Anthès looked around the room as if he searched for a clue.

"Do you play?", he asked pointing at the table with the drafts prepared for a game.

"Yes. Would you like to...."

"With great pleasure!", interrupted d'Anthès enthusiastically.

         As the men sat to the play they lost the track of time playing one game after another. They could not possibly see a dark shadow in the garden nor hear the rattle of metal as he walked down the alley and disappeared in the fog. 

       Later on Pushkin wrote a poem to commemorate the event that brought the men together and let them live long and happy life, which became more famous than "Eugene Onegin".

Ojczysty - dodaj do ulubionych

      I'd like to present an abstract from one of my works I wrote on my first faculty. It is connected with some language issues that I am interested in and I reminded myself about it after reading of the Krzysztof Varga's feuilleton "Polski język czyli lubię to, kurwa!" (Duży Format 1.03.2012.)

I hope you'd like it and pardon my French ^_^

The loss of  the rude meaning of some rude expressions in the Polish current language.

            The problem of foul language has been described in details by many linguists but one of the recent phenomenon as the loss of the rude meaning of some vulgar expressions has not been yet widely brought up. The background for this linguistic issue is the constantly changing and modifying language of young people. This particular change is connected with the need of the youth to make their language more expressive and intense.

            The contemporary Polish language belongs to numerous variants of the language and depends on communication situation of the participants of the language act. Contemporary language of young people is especially focused on expressing emotions both positive and negative. Sometimes to express their feelings young people use foul expressions. There is a great word family of words derived from ‘jebać’ that refer to negative and, surprisingly, positive feelings and events as well. Especially words like ‘zajebiście’ and ‘zajebiaszczo’ are so common that young people started to lose the sense of rude meaning of these two words. They stopped to use less rude synonyms like ’ekstra’, ‘świetnie’, ‘super’ or more expressive ‘zarąbiście’. Now saying: “Wyglądasz zajebiście” or “Było zajebiaszczo” is no longer rude.

            I believe that the reason for the loss of the rude meaning lies in common use of those expressions. ‘Zajebisty’ is heard on the street and television, used by pop idols and even politicians. Such behaviours surprise because the rude meaning of other related words such as ‘zajebać’ and ‘jebać’ is still visible. Why then the adverb and adjective are no longer seen as foul language? The answer to that question is connected with contemporary language and its domination in communication in present-day culture. All these aspects gathered together induce that phenomenon.

            In conclusion, the loss of rude meaning of some vulgar expressions is caused both by the need of stressing emotional aspect of some events and the present fashion of using colloquial language in every communication situation. If some foul phrases start to be used in everyday-life language they lose their rude meaning and become just some emotional expressions of the contemporary language.