Влете́ть в копе́ечку: to cost a pretty penny

A Bit Much

By Michele A. Berdy

Раз-два и обчёлся: you can count the number on one hand

There is nothing worse than having a friend tell you the price of something when you have no idea if it's ridiculously expensive or the bargain of the century. She describes the apartment of her dreams and leads up to the great reveal — a ruble price tag with so many zeros your mental exchange rate calculator crashes. You know you are going to be a great disappointment, but all the same you ask: Это много или мало? (Is that a lot or a little?)

Мало is the word to describe a little of something — here, мало денег (a little money). If you don't like the adverb мало, you can use other more expressive words: бедно (poor), скудно (miserly), немного (not much), немножко (just a little bit), чуть-чуть (a tiny bit), небогато (not rich), негусто (low on; literally "not thick"), or нежирно (sparse; literally "not fat").

These words can be used in a variety of situations. Негусто (not thick) would seem to describe a thin soup, but it can be applied to anything from a meal to a corporate presentation. В ходе встречи президент несколько раз повторил: "Давайте конкретику!" Но с конкретными предложениями было негусто. (Several times during the meeting the president said, "Give me some specifics!" But specific proposals were few and far between.)

If you don't like those words, you can use that Russian specialty: whimsical combinations of little words with all the verbs and nouns left out: всего ничего (nothing at all), не так чтобы очень (not what you'd call very [much]), or не так чтобы много (not what you'd call a lot).

You can go left-brain: микроскопический (microscopic), по пальцам можно пересчитать (you can count them on the fingers of one hand). Or you can go right-brain and use various body parts as comparisons: горстка (handful); на один зуб (for one tooth, said of a small amount of food); or на/c мизинец (the size of my little finger).

If you don't like your own body parts as examples, you can refer to nature: капля (a drop) or капля в море (a drop in the bucket; literally "sea"). Or the animal kingdom: с гулькин нос (the size of a pigeon's beak, гулька or гуля being variants of голубь).

More expressive is как слону булочка (like a bun for an elephant). This is said with exaggerated self-pity when asked if you got enough to eat. If you really want to go expressive, try the charming phrase кот наплакал (literally "a cat cried"), used with a noun in the genitive case to describe a tiny bit of something — as much as a cat would shed in tears. Было трудно: опыта тогда было — кот наплакал, и веры в свои силы — ещё меньше. (It was rough. At the time, I had nada experience and even less belief in myself.)

Another wonderful expression for not much is раз-два и обчёлся, which means that there were one or two things — and that's it. Usually this is a bad thing: Хороших картин было раз-два и обчёлся (You could count the good paintings on the fingers of one hand). But sometimes being one of a very few can be presented as a good thing: Таких, как я — раз-два и обчёлся! (People like me — they're thin on the ground!)

To which one must say: И слава Богу! (Thank God for that!)

Trying to Stay Calm in a Russian Supermarket

By Michele A. Berdy

Влете́ть в копе́ечку: to cost a pretty penny

While I was swanning through the produce section of a supermarket the other day, humming a little food tune as I contemplated dinner, a price tag suddenly stopped me dead in my tracks. Cauliflower was selling for 760 rubles a kilogram. I've been watching prices double in recent weeks, but cauliflower?! Plain old, grown-everywhere, easy-to-store cauliflower?! 760 rubles a kilogram! Boy, are we in trouble.

The first thing I did was race home to brush up my ability to describe outrageously skyrocketing prices.

Let's start with how to ask about a price. There's the simple сколько стоит (how much), or почём, по какой цене (how much, often used for things that have a unit cost).

Replies come with several different verbs. Платье стоит 12,000 рублей. (The dress costs 12,000 rubles.) Машина вам обойдётся в 2 миллиона рублей. (The car will run you 2 million rubles.) Ремонт встанет тебе больше 10,000 рублей. (The repairs will cost you more than 10,000 rubles.) Sometimes people use a phrase with an exact English equivalent: Эта квартира легко уйдёт за миллион баксов. (That apartment will easily go for a million bucks.)

Then you need a nice selection of adjectives to appropriately describe the price (цена). Высокая (high) just doesn't cut it. Я была на рынке, и цены … (I was at the market and the prices were …): адские (hellish), аховые (yikes!), астрономические (astronomical) or бешеные (insane, literally "rabid").

When I'm sputtering over a price I like to use the word баснословный (fabulous), from the word басня (fable or legend). The idea is the prices are the stuff of legends, but not in a good way. Овощи теперь стоят баснословных денег. (Vegetables these days cost an arm and a leg.) Да, съездили в якобы дешёвый магазин. А там всё баснословно дорого. (Yes, we went to the so-called cheap store. Even there everything was jaw-droppingly expensive).

In the old days — that is, a few months ago — usually people, advice, recommendations and the like were worth на вес золота (their weight in gold). Его информация ценилась на вес золота. (His information was worth its weight in gold.) But now, in the new era, anything can cost as much as a gold necklace. Охлаждённая рыба, которая лежит на льду, просто на вес золота. (Chilled fish on ice is just worth its weight in gold.)

Sometimes things are so expensive you can't even touch them. А сыр — к сырам приступу нет (As far as cheese goes — you can't even touch it. Literally, "you can't approach it.") Or you can't touch it because the high prices bite. Как вкусно! Но цены кусаются. (It's really delicious! But the prices take a real bite out of your budget.) Or they burn: В этом году цены жгутся. Первичный приём у врача — 3,500 рублей. (This year prices are off the charts. The first doctor's visit is 3,500 rubles.)

In English, very expensive things cost a pretty penny. In Russian, they cost a fine little kopek. You have a choice of verbs: влетать/влететь (to fly); вставать/встать (to rise); выходить/выйти (to come out); обходиться/обойтись (to cost) — all of which end with the phrase в копеечку (a fine kopek).

Утка обойдётся в копеечку. (The duck is going to cost you a pretty penny.) Строительство влетит в копеечку. (Construction costs are going to go through the roof.)

Stay tuned! Next week: ways to express poverty.

What's in a name?

Recently, a couple in New Zealand were forbidden from naming their baby son 4Real. Even though New Zealand has quite liberal rules about naming children, names beginning with a number are not allowed. They decided to call him Superman instead.

In many countries around the world, unusual names for children are becoming more popular, especially since the increasing trend for celebrities to give their children wacky names. In Britain, you can call a child almost anything you like - the only restrictions on parents relate to offensive words such as swear words.

Some parents choose names which come from popular culture. For example, there have been six boys named Gandalf after the character in the Lord of the Rings novels and films. Equally, names relating to sport are fairly common - since 1984, 36 children have been called Arsenal after the football team.

Other parents like to make up names, or combine names to make their own unique version, a method demonstrated by Jordan, the British model, who recently invented the name Tiáamii for her daughter by combining the names Thea and Amy (the two grandmothers). She was quoted as saying that the accent and double letters were added to make the name 'more exotic'.

Other countries have much stricter rules when it comes to naming children. Countries including Japan, Denmark, Spain, Germany and Argentina have an approved list of names from which parents must choose. In China, there are some rules about what you may call a child - no foreign letters or symbols are allowed. As a result a couple were recently banned from calling their baby @.

In Britain, some names which were previously thought of as old-fashioned have become more popular again, such as Maisie or Ella for a girl, or Alfie or Noah for a boy. But the most popular names are not the wacky ones. The top names are fairly traditional - Jack, Charlie and Thomas for boys and Grace, Ruby and Jessica for girls.