OK, I know yall aren't as enthralled by this kind of thing as I am. But it's so cute.
At least, the last bit of trivia is wicked. And it's six a.m., bozhe moi.
"Way back when the Russian language was being developed, the local folks didn't seem too interested in "body parts that stick out." The body parts sticking out of the torso - in English arm and hand - are both described by one word, рука; leg and foot are нога. Somehow context, adjectives and diminutives, make it clear if you are talking about a foot or hand (often the diminutives ножка,ручка) or leg or arm. For example, it's definitely a leg if described as длинная (long) or толстая (fat). Other adjectives conventionally refer to feet: у неё большие ноги! (She has big feet!) Despite the initial vagueness with digits, once you get down to describing individual fingers, things get more precise. Большой палец is thumb or big toe, указательный is the index finger (literally "pointing" finger), средний is the middle finger, мизинец or маленьний is the little finger (or toe). In Russian the fourth finger, or ring finger, is mysteriously called безымянный, literally, "the nameless finger." There are various theories about this: Either it was "the finger that shall not be named" because it had magical powers (we wear rings on this finger because the vein from it supposedly goes straight to the heart), or, more mundanely, because they ran out of things to call it."
-from a recent St. Petersburg Times, an English-language Petersburg newspaper that, irrelevantly, mentioned the Bard/Smolny play in the summer of 2004. I still have the photo.
"Way back when the Russian language was being developed, the local folks didn't seem too interested in "body parts that stick out." The body parts sticking out of the torso - in English arm and hand - are both described by one word, рука; leg and foot are нога. Somehow context, adjectives and diminutives, make it clear if you are talking about a foot or hand (often the diminutives ножка,ручка) or leg or arm. For example, it's definitely a leg if described as длинная (long) or толстая (fat). Other adjectives conventionally refer to feet: у неё большие ноги! (She has big feet!) Despite the initial vagueness with digits, once you get down to describing individual fingers, things get more precise. Большой палец is thumb or big toe, указательный is the index finger (literally "pointing" finger), средний is the middle finger, мизинец or маленьний is the little finger (or toe). In Russian the fourth finger, or ring finger, is mysteriously called безымянный, literally, "the nameless finger." There are various theories about this: Either it was "the finger that shall not be named" because it had magical powers (we wear rings on this finger because the vein from it supposedly goes straight to the heart), or, more mundanely, because they ran out of things to call it."
-from a recent St. Petersburg Times, an English-language Petersburg newspaper that, irrelevantly, mentioned the Bard/Smolny play in the summer of 2004. I still have the photo.