Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!apple!bloom-beacon!GAFFA.MIT.EDU!Love-Hounds-request From: Love-Hounds-request@GAFFA.MIT.EDU Newsgroups: rec.music.gaffa Subject: Re: Babooshka blah blah Message-ID: <8909131522.AA04560@GAFFA.MIT.EDU> Date: 13 Sep 89 15:22:50 GMT References: <8908300219.AA06271@ide.com> Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Love-Hounds@GAFFA.MIT.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 19 Approved: love-hounds@eddie.mit.edu Really-From: Doug Alan Well, I asked my Russian coworker about the word "babushka" and she said that in Russian, the word means "grandmother" and nothing more. She says that it never is used to mean either "scarf worn on the head" or as a term of endearment. She also said that she has heard it often used both these ways by Americans. (In fact, if you look in an English dictionary, the definition of "babushka" is "a usually triangularly folded kerchief for the head".) In any case, there is still the possibility that Kate used the name "Babooshka" because she once heard it used as a term of endearment by an ignorant English-speaker and it stuck in her head. |>oug P.S. A Health teacher in high school told me that "retcyn" is a trademark for glucose (i.e. sugar). Whether or not he is right, I don't know, but it would not surprise me in the least.