Ogrim's Krambu - a plethora of languages, mostly European, both old and new

[MamaPata]

I'm British and I've never heard bung used like that! Though I freely admit to not reading the Sun!

[DaveBee]

I'm British and I've never heard bung used like that! Though I freely admit to not reading the Sun!

What part of the country are you from?

(I'm from SE England, and I've heard bung=bribe)

[MamaPata]

I'm British and I've never heard bung used like that! Though I freely admit to not reading the Sun!

What part of the country are you from?

(I'm from SE England, and I've heard bung=bribe)

Also from SE England

[Ogrim]

I'm British and I've never heard bung used like that! Though I freely admit to not reading the Sun!

What part of the country are you from?

(I'm from SE England, and I've heard bung=bribe)

Also from SE England

I don't read the Sun either, but the word was on the front page of The Times, and I saw it in The Guardian, The Independent and The Daily Telegraph, all on the same day. So hardly just a typical "Sun"-word.

Life is full of coincidences. Having come across the word in said newspapers in the morning, in the evening I read a few chapters of Ian Rankin's Rebus-novel "Even Dogs in the Wild", and lo and behold, I came over a sentence about a gangster who only dealt with police officers when he was pushing "bungs under the table".

[Ogrim]

Last night I visited HTLAL for the first time in many months. and it truly is an abandoned house, but with a lot of nice and useful old "furniture" intact. To revive old memories, I also visited my own log, and I see my last posting there was on 10 July 2015 - time goes fast!

I mention this because in one post in that log I talked about a Russian comedy group called Уральские пельмени, and lately I have spent a little bit of time on Youtube watching some of their sketches. I realise I understand a lot more of the dialogues now than two years ago (it would be worrying if I didn't), but I still don't get all of the jokes, either because they speak too fast, or use words I don't understand, or perhaps I do not always have the cultural context to make sense of it. Overall though I find their stuff enjoyable and some sketches are relatively easy to understand at my level of Russian, like this one which I watched earlier this week: Свадьба - Ура! Стипенсия!

[aaleks]

or perhaps I do not always have the cultural context to make sense of it.

I guess that is it. For example, to fully appreciate this sketch about a wedding you have to see those тетенек из ЗАГСа* in "action" at least once

*I mean that long-speaking lady. I don't know how to translate correctly a 'ЗАГС' into English , it's a place where people get married.

[neofight78]

I don't know about other English speaking countries but in the UK the equivalent to ЗАГС would be "registry office".

[jeff_lindqvist]

Last night I visited HTLAL for the first time in many months. and it truly is an abandoned house, but with a lot of nice and useful old "furniture" intact. To revive old memories, I also visited my own log, and I see my last posting there was on 10 July 2015 - time goes fast!

I've also visited HTLAL recently! It started a short while ago when Systematiker posted a link to one of the Arguelles threads about Slavic languages, and then I've read other great topics from beginning to end.

[Ogrim]

or perhaps I do not always have the cultural context to make sense of it.

I guess that is it. For example, to fully appreciate this sketch about a wedding you have to see those тетенек из ЗАГСа* in "action" at least once

*I mean that long-speaking lady. I don't know how to translate correctly a 'ЗАГС' into English , it's a place where people get married.

I've read about ЗАГС but never been to one, obviously. I have however been to lots of weddings in Europe (both religious and non-religious) and I know how tedious the speeches can be. Anyway, I did enjoy that wedding sketch, but of course I don't have the same references as you Russians do.

By the way, I thought that тётенька is a familiar word for тетка but now I understand you can also use it referring to a woman who is not your aunt?

In France people get married at the town hall, la mairie

[aaleks]

By the way, I thought that тётенька is a familiar word for тетка but now I understand you can also use it referring to a woman who is not your aunt?

I prefer to call my aunts тётя. Тетка sounds a bit rude to me and associates with a big, loud, unpleasant woman.
In other cases - yes, we call any woman тетя, тетка, тетенька (or дядя, дядька, дяденька speaking about a man) depending on circumstances, but it's mostly just a way of speaking (colloquial). You can say something like вот та тётенька в синем платье, but it will be better not to address that (or any other) тётенька in person this way , at least if you are not a little kid . Тетенька is a kids' word. But it also can to convey a certain sub-meaning. Тетенька из ЗАГСа is not just a woman it's a character