Moscow News
www.mnweekly.ru
March 5, 2009
Size matters & colour codes
By Mark H. Teeter
Mark H. Teeter is an American English teacher and translator based in Moscow.
With a meeting between presidents Medvedev and Obama now looming on the near horizon, it's a good time for Russian speakers learning English to consider the two most obvious differences between these gents - think a moment - and figure out how to talk about them without offending anyone (especially the two presidents).
Let's take the easy one first: height. Medvedev stands 5 feet, 4 inches (162 cm), while Obama is 6'1" (186). How should we express this (or any) difference in height in acceptably neutral terms? "X is taller than Y" is fine, and "Y is shorter than X" is OK, too. But it's best to avoid variants such as "X has more stature than Y," "X is the greater of the two," and even "X is bigger than Y" - all true in the physical sense, but all potentially shaded with other meanings.
You might say that one president stands "head and shoulders above" the other, and the idiom would almost literally be true in this case. But remember that this phrase is also used figuratively, distinguishing the superior quality of a book, movie, pizza or almost anything from inferiors. So be careful with it, and note that even a seemingly innocuous formulation - say, "Obama's grasp of arms control issues is head and shoulders above Medvedev's" - could sound like a cheap joke.
A word on pejoratives: Among the epithets best avoided when describing people of modest height are "squirt," "pint-sized," "stumpy," "short-stuff," and "pee-wee." Also stay well away from Randy Newman's popular satirical song "Short People," often taken rather badly by short people not long on satire.
What works? The phrase "vertically challenged" is amusing, but only for its mockery of political correctness. For more-or-less formal speech and writing, go with "diminutive" rather than the elsewhere-acceptable "small" or "little."
One colorful phrase almost certain to arise as Americans watch the first Medvedev-Obama meetings on TV is "Mutt and Jeff." This harks back to a classic U.S. comic strip dating from 1907, in which the taller Mutt stands head and shoulders (literally) above his pal Jeff.
"Mutt and Jeff" is a neutral reference, but should probably be avoided here - unless people from Medvedev's camp have the wit and foresight to launch a "first strike": If the Russian president begins the summit's initial photo-op with "Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Speaking as Jeff to President Obama's Mutt...", it will draw a good laugh from all the Americans present while immediately disarming the height disparity "issue."
Indeed, the lanky Barack has already set up this self-effacing one-liner for the diminutive Dmitry: at his first post-election press conference, Obama referred to himself with a mildly disparaging term for an animal of mixed origins - a "mutt." This kind of coincidence is a terrible thing to waste!
In general, Russians learning English should shy away such words, even when they hear them from the mouths of the "mutts" themselves. The area of race and ethnicity should always be approached with extreme caution, since English speakers have effectively laid a minefield in it for unwary outsiders.
Obama is an African-American and should be described as such, since that is the standard neutral term now. But there is history to contend with here. In my lifetime, the words "colored," "Negro," "black" (or "Black") and "Afro-American" have also been acceptable - but each of these now bears a certain nuance. It is not acceptable, for example, to term Mr. Obama and his family "colored people"; they may, however, be called "people of color." See what I mean?
The most dangerous landmine, however, is "the n-word" - nigger - a pejorative term which is especially problematic in Moscow, since the nominally neutral Russian word sounds quite like it to many ears.
The n-word has a complex history. It occurs in real literature, including Joseph Conrad and Agatha Christie titles and throughout Mark Twain's classic "Huckleberry Finn." Even more confoundingly, it is used often enough in public by African-Americans themselves, particularly in popular music and comedy venues. Why should it be a problem for others then, such as Russians learning English?
Some things just are. This is one of them. Never use it. End of story.
Or put it this way: If some American referred to you, a Russian, as a - a perfectly natural mistake for white English speakers, who classify their own ethnicity as "Caucasian" - would you be likely to take it neutrally?
So, that's the long and the short of it, in black and white. Let the summit begin!