C. G. Estabrook galliher at alexia.lis.uiuc.edu
> ... (It's only been two days and the Washington
Post is already
> misquoting Putin's State of the Nation address.
Hacks on speed.)
How so? --CGE
---
The WP, in its insane editorial, quotes P as saying that the collapse of the USSR was the greatest geopoltical disaster of the 20th century (i.e. worse than WWII etc.). (Then it goes on David Irving-like to deny the tragedy, but that's another story.) That's not what he said.
I have the Russian text in front of me: "Sleduet priznat, chto krushenie Sovetskogo Soyuza bylo krupneishei geopolitcheskoi katastrofoi veka." This means, "It follows that it must be admitted that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a very great catastrophy of the century."
What a difference an article makes! "Krupneishii" means "very, superlatively great," not "the greatest," which would be "samyi krupnii."
Putin is in agreement with 75% of his electorate (going by the last opinion poll I saw, about a month or so ago).
Nu, zayats, pogodi!
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com