Subj : Cough... 1. To : Ardith Hinton From : alexander koryagin Date : Fri Sep 29 2017 21:08:50 Hi, Ardith Hinton! I read your message from 28.09.2017 15:46 about Cough... 1.. ak>> In Russia "girl" is fully acceptable addressing to any a not very ak>> old female shop-assistant. IMHO, an old woman feels herself being ak>> flattered. ;) AH> In this part of the world an older woman might feel flattered if AH> she thought you'd underestimated her age. However, a younger woman AH> might be amused or insulted if she thought you'd done the same... AH> [chuckle]. AH> From a historical POV, people have often been referred to as "lads AH> & lasses" or "boy & girls" until their mid-twenties at least... AH> particularly when they were as yet unmarried... but nowadays many AH> women Over Here feel frustrated if it seems they may be doomed to a AH> life of servitude in the pink collar ghetto because they're not If it is interesting, "boy" and "girl" mean in English a much wider range of things than in Russian. In Russian we have more words for describing ages. When we apply to a young female shop assistant we use "devooshka" that is applied to young females from 16+ years old. Much more limited is the use of "malchik" ("young boy"). When we say "malchik" we mean somebody under 12 and don't use the word for grown-ups. We use "paren" ("guy") instead, or "molodoy chelovek" (a young human(!:))). A girl under 12 in Russian is "devochka". ak>> Now in Russia we have a new jargon -- we can call a woman (when ak>> she doesn't hear it) with a funny sounding word used by small ak>> children (aunty - tetenka). I can say to my college, AH> I think you mean "colleague".... Yes. I believe I wrote this English word for the first time in my life. ;) ak>> "A some tetenka called you 5 minutes ago -- she wanted you to call ak>> on the market department." ;) AH> I'd say "some [blah blah]", without the article, but since you AH> don't want her to overhear your description of her I recognize the AH> type of person you are referring to... I think. I could tell AH> stories about people of both genders who behave in a similar AH> manner. I want to hear what you have to say about them first, AH> though. I've rambled on more than enough & you need the AH> practice. :-)) Well, IMHO, the matter is that many words in the Russian language sound funny, even for the Russians ;=) So, we use such words to make speech more informal. Ukrainian words for the Russians look even more funny (because of similarity of the languages) and Russian people often also use them for the same purpose. Bye, Ardith! Alexander Koryagin ENGLISH_TUTOR 2017 --- Paul's Win98SE VirtualBox * Origin: Quinn's Post - Maryborough, Queensland, OZ (3:640/384) .