Of Pigs and Oranges

This year, we are told, is the Year of the Pig. Given that pigs are not the most honored beasts over here, we Russians have been wondering what exactly this year may have in store for us. After all, we want to make sure 2007 не подложит нам свинью (“does not spell trouble”). 

The idiom подложить свинью (literally, “to lay a pig”) means to cook up big trouble for someone. It may derive from village life, when one fellow lets his pig into his neighbor’s garden. Swine are notorious spoilers, reveling in turning up the soil and uprooting trees and bushes. Thus the proverb, Волк – не пастух, свинья не огородник (“a wolf is not a  shepherd, a pig is not a gardener”). 

Another etymological explanation derives the notion of pig-laying from the troop formation of Alexander Nevsky’s army, which thwarted the 13th-century German invasion. This formation was said to be swinish (построение свиньёй). Yet, interestingly enough, in German “to have a swine” (Er hat schwein) means “to be lucky” and Germans often give one another marzipan pigs on New Year’s as a token of good luck. It gives new meaning to our saying что русскому здорово, то немцу смерть (“what’s good for a Russian is lethal for a German”)! 

In Russia, just as in America, the pig is mainly associated with dirty, stinking, disreputable behavior. If you need to find an especially disgusting image to describe a drunkard, say напился до поросьячего визга (“he got drunk to the point of swine’s yelp”). If a kid spills some sauce on his immaculate shirt, an angry babushka might utter: “Свинья грязи найдёт” (“a pig will find mud anywhere”). For such an occasion, parents born in the 1930s-1940s may prefer to quote the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky: вырастет из сына свин, если сын свинёнок (“a son will grow into a pig if he is already a piglet”). 

One of the most famous swinish literary citations is from Nikolai Gogol’s Inspector General. The parvenu Khlestakov calls Zemlyanika свинья в ермолке (“a pig in a yarmulke”). Speaking of parvenus, when someone tries to break through into a social circle above his station, you could quip, “со свиным рылом, да в калашный ряд” (“breaking through the bread line with his pig’s mug”). Nor can we forget the biblical phrase, метать бисер перед свиньями (“to cast pearl before swine”). 

Lovers of Russian proverbs will surely come up with more свинячий фольклор, and I do not intend to “steal their thunder” (which in Russian, by the way, is не хочу отнимать у них хлеб, “I don’t want to steal their bread”). Yet, I will mention that, among the best piggish expressions are Бог не выдаст, свинья не съест (“God won’t give [it] away, the pig won’t eat it” – pronounced before undertaking something risky), and the somewhat crude, Гусь свинье не товарищ (“A goose is not a pig’s comrade”). This latter is apropos when a friend (and only a friend; said to anyone else, this would be a rough insult) invites you to join him – and you refuse, joking, “Нy извини, гусь свинье не товарищ.” If your friend is quick-witted, then he might respond, “Ну, тогда я полетел”  (“Well, then I gotta fly!”), meaning: “OK, if that’s how you want it, I am the goose, you’re the pig”). 

Now I can’t resist sharing a few chosen swine expressions I learned from my dedushka Misha (born in 1895). If someone was poorly informed about something, dedushka would say “он знает в этом толк, как свинья в апельсинах” (“He knows as much about that as a pig knows about oranges”). Dedushka also had a special alternative for the common proverb “tastes differ” (о вкусах не спорят). Mikhail Stepanovich would say with a sardonic smile, “кому апельсин, а кому свиной хрящик” (“some like oranges, some pig cartilage”).  

Dedushka had another good one about oranges: “от осины не родятся апельсины” (“you don’t get oranges from an aspen tree”). Or, as you like to say in America, “you can’t make silk from a sow’s ear.” If you try, you are sure to lay down a pig... for yourself.