Posted on 08/13/2005 12:54:13 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Similarly under the CCCP, in order to move from Moscow to St. Petersburg (or any other city for that matter), a person had to find another person in St. Petersburg who wanted to move to Moscow. Otherwise the Mayor of Moscow would be faced with the situation that his old buddy, the mayor of St. Petersburg, had just gone one up on him. The basic idea in play was literally a medieval conception of ownership leftover from the days of serfdom, and that is also clearly what is happening in those Houston school districts.
Great analogy.
The language still contains medieval usages. Something like "A tui menya naKARkal" = "You jinxed me!" is basically crow/raven language ( "karrr, karrr....") and not Russian, and arises because humans cannot pronounce real curses (according to Russian custom) so that a wizard (volshebnik) wishing to put a serious curse on somebody would need to have his pet raven pronounce the curse (or jinx).
Cute, huh?
You might want to get that thought about the mayors of Moscow and St. Petersburg to the people at MUMFORD if you have any way to do that; they might could use it in the courtroom.
Not a bad idea.
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