Glossary entry

Russian term or phrase:

обложник (матерный обложник)

English translation:

foul-mouthed (old bugger), cusser, swearer

Added to glossary by Tim Sergay
Nov 2, 2011 14:10
12 yrs ago
Russian term

обложник (матерный обложник)

Russian to English Art/Literary Linguistics Possibly regional or archaic sense
Dear PROZ.com colleagues,

My context is again a contemporary historical novel, "Lozhitsia mgla na starye stupeni" by A.P. Chudakov, chapter 33; the setting is 1950s Moscow. The narrator recalls a traditional rhyming taunt directed at cobblers from Kimry in Tver Governorate: Мастеров-кимряков ценили, им завидовали, дразнили: «Тверской сапожник, матерный обложник, жену в кабаке пропил да козе башмаки на копыта купил». — «Это ты купишь, а я сам стачам». — «Сапожки для козлиной ножки!»

What is the sense of обложник in матерный обложник? Does it refer to "furred tongue," as in обложенный язык, and is this condition of the tongue related to alcohol abuse? Or is the whole phrase матерный обложник generally abusive of the man's character, suggesting foulness, perhaps like похабник? If the latter, what is the idea of обкладывание or обложение involved? Segregation, outcastness?

Thank you as always for your help!

Best wishes,
Tim Sergay

Proposed translations

+2
48 mins
Selected

foul-mouthed (old bugger)

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Peer comment(s):

agree cyhul
11 hrs
Thank you, cyhul!
agree Laura Friend : splotnik, I like the way you preserved the essential meaning while transferring it from one part of speech (the noun) to another (the adjective). That's fun to see.
8 days
Thank you, Laura!
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4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Thank you, splotnik! There aren't many nouns meaning "one who curses"; "cusser" is about the only one that seems natural and expressive, as is suggested by native speakers puzzling over the problem here: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Cusser."
38 mins

badmouth heaper

This is an obsolete word and therefore it is rather hard to interpret it right, but if you base on the core concept............
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38 mins

refer to "обложить матом"

Which means "to call names". In your case, the word suggests a foul-mouthed person.

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Note added at 39 mins (2011-11-02 14:49:53 GMT)
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http://dic.academic.ru/dic.nsf/dic_synonims/254335/обругать
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15 hrs

hairy

Поскольку в оригинале употребляется устаревшее слово, то и в английском можно употребить усторевшее слово "HAIRY" - хам, невежа, грубиян.

Примеры употребления слова "HAIRY":
hairy in the fetlocks, hairy round the heels, hairy-heeled; синонимы: a cad, a bounder, an outsider. "The Colonel delivered himself of the opinion that Godfrey Burrows was slightly hairy at the heel, a pronouncement which baffled Poirot completely")
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