I'm intrigued by the variety of responses to my ringer-spiel about "starets"!
1. From CarpalTunnel Faldage: "Welcome to the mad house." Thank you for that!
2. From Journeyman Goofy: "The belief that we must look to another language to discover how to use English words is known as the etymological fallacy." Now
that helps me see in better proportion why "starets" is a ringer: no matter how many CarpalTunnel types like zmjezhd have found that word while reading Russian History, or how many of their dictionaries may show that word, starets to ME remains a ringer because I don't believe people can use it. If you work it into a conversation, a listener will say, "Star-WHAT?", and you've lost him.
3. From Enthusiast Beck123: "We agreed among ourselves centuries ago to communicate in a language not burdened with ... declensions and such, so why are we occasionally fixated with these in Modern English?" EXACTLY the right question, and posed more eloquently than my ranting about RINGERS.
4. From Stranger Chuckledore: Of course zmjezhd is right that STARETS appears in archival tomes like the OED, and I misspoke when I put to CarpalTunnel types the question, "WHO has even heard of this silly word?"... I should have
asked, "WHO of you has ever USED this word?" You'll excuse me; I should have told you where I'm coming from! HINT: I just counted the number of Russian dictionaries on the wall to the right of my MacPro: there are 68. I am
an interpreter/translator (E-R and R-E). In my work, I focus on IDEAS, not
words (in interpreting one has no time for words: you hear and see pictures and ideas: one paragraph is one idea). You REJECT words that your experience says will be trouble-makers: If I hear "starets" in Russian, I'll likely render it as "spiritual advisor", though it'll depend on context..... but I CERTAINLY won't come up with the supposedly English word "starets" because it's a damned ringer and I'll get glared at. Interpreters are supposed to be essentially invisible; we may never ever attract attention to ourselves: we must remain demure and shy, inconspicuously filtering out RINGERS while rushing to finish the paragraph . . . and avoid getting glared at. Thus I will predictably
get into more and more trouble with CarpalTunnel types, assuming I do not
first get ejected from this company for myself being too much of a ringer . . .
