Keeping You Guessing
By Michele A. Berdy
Гадать на кофейной гуще/на бобах: to read tea leaves
Feeling a little lost? Confused? Remember when you used to pick up the paper, read the news, and feel like you actually understood what was going on? Well, those days are long gone. Today, when you finish reading a news report, you end up with more questions than answers.
Which brings us to a word and its derivatives you see all the time these days: гадать (to guess, to tell fortunes).
The first thing you need to remember about this productive little word is where the stress lies: firmly on the last syllable. You do not want to confuse гадать with гадить -- stress on first syllable -- since that word means "to make a mess" -- including the kind a puppy makes on the rug. We are seeking clarity, not a can of worms.
Then you must pay attention to the prefix. You are first confronted with загадка (mystery). Я ничего не понимаю. Это полная загадка. (I don't understand a thing. It's a complete mystery.) Then you develop догадка (conjecture, guess). У меня одни догадки. (I can only guess.) Догадки are stabs in the dark, much less grounded in analysis than предположение (supposition) or прогноз (prognosis). Это прогнозы или всего лишь догадки? (Is this a sound prognosis or guesswork?)
When you are swimming in a sea of theories, far from the shore of facts, you can say теряться в догадках (literally, to be lost in conjectures). Я понятия не имею. Я теряюсь в догадках. (I have no idea. I'm way over my head.) Or you can just say: Я теряюсь. (I'm at a loss.) If you are so lost you are getting upset -- which is the way I feel every morning after reading the news -- you can say: Я в растерянности. (I'm totally at sea.)
As your guesses get warm-warmer-hot, you can use the verb догадываться/догадаться (to figure something out). Here you need to pay attention not only to the prefix, but to aspect. Yes, I know you hate aspect, but obscurity is worse. When you use the imperfective form, догадываться, it means you're still trying to crack this nut. Я не знаю. Я просто догадываюсь. (I don't know. I'm just guessing.) When you use the perfective form, догадаться, it means you've nailed that sucker. Я догадался, о чём идёт речь. (I figured out what's going on.)
When you hit the nail on the head, someone might call you догадливый (perceptive).
-- Я знаю, почему ты пришёл.
-- Эх, какая ты догадливая! (I know why you've come. -- You're quick on the uptake, aren't you?)
At this point you can switch to a new prefix with the verb разгадать (to solve a mystery). You might use this word when you have solved some kind of scientific puzzle: Генетики разгадали секрет долголетия. (Geneticists have solved the mystery of long life.) Or when you are divining something unscientifically: Моя подруга хорошо разгадывает кроссворды. (My friend is good at crossword puzzles.) Or, less commonly, when you have gotten to the bottom of someone: Наконец-то я разгадал этого странного человека. (I finally figured out this strange person.)
These days, news commentators constantly use the unadorned гадать. Что на самом деле случилось? Можно только гадать. (What really happened? We can only speculate.)
Or worse: гадать на кофейной гуще or на бобах. These are two forms of fortune telling that use coffee grounds and beans. Russians have always practiced and believed in this kind of fortune-telling -- especially young women during the Christmas season, to see if the new year would bring a bridegroom. But today the expression means "to guess without any basis in fact" -- what we English-speakers call "reading tea leaves." Мы не можем понять, что происходит. Остаётся только гадать на кофейной гуще. (We can't understand what's going on. All we can do is read tea leaves.)
Coffee or tea, anyone?
Traffic Jams as the City's Growth Industry
By Michele A. Berdy
Застрять в пробке: to get stuck in a traffic jam.
If you have been driving around Moscow -- no, let me rephrase that: If you have been trying to drive around Moscow this December, but instead have been whiling away the hours in traffic jams, it's not your imagination. Traffic is outrageous. News services confirm that the roads are jammed as everyone tries to finish their business and do their shopping before the holidays. The bad news is that it will get worse before Dec. 31. The good news is that in early January all the owners of иномарки (foreign cars) will be off in the Canaries, and for a blessed two weeks the roads will be clear.
Meanwhile, it's a great time to brush up on your motoring -- or idling -- slang.
First useful word: движение (traffic). In most cases you qualify the noun with adjectives expressing various levels of hysteria: Сегодня движение было тяжёлое/ужасное/невыносимое! (Today the traffic was heavy/awful/unbearable!) Lately, Russians have taken to calling it трафик, but this is dreadfully pretentious, used with a world-weary sigh in phrases such as Трафик у нас стал ужасным, но в Манхэттене он ещё хуже. (Traffic here has gotten terrible, but it's even worse in Manhattan.) On the news you'll hear движение затруднено (traffic is moving slowly, literally "made difficult"), but you should know this really means: "No one on this stretch of highway has shifted out of second gear in an hour." Then there are заторы (jams) and пробки (bottlenecks, literally "corks"). These are caused by about a million cars trying to fit into two lanes of a tunnel at the same time, or about 500 cars trying to make a right-hand turn from the five left-hand lanes. Or they are caused by ДТП: дорожно-транспортное происшествие (a traffic accident).
Sometimes the accidents aren't too bad. Drivers used to say поцеловались бамперами (literally "their bumpers kissed") to describe a minor fender-bender; now they say чиркать бампером (to scratch someone with your bumper) or задеть бампером (to bang bumpers). Or you might also hear: Иномарка притёрлась к Волге. (The foreign car grazed the Volga.) A bit worse is: Мерс подрезал девятку. (The Mercedes clipped a Model 9 Zhiguli.) Подрезать is also the word you use to describe someone cutting in front of you, that favorite maneuver of Muscovite drivers. Он обогнал меня слева, потом подрезал и повернул направо. (He passed me on the left and then cut in front of me to make a right turn.)
Worse is столкнуться (to hit someone), as in this astonishing headline: Трамвай выехал на встречную полосу и столкнулся с троллейбусом. (The tram went into the oncoming traffic and hit a trolleybus.) This habit of using the opposite lane of traffic whenever one is bored with one's own lane -- called colloquially выезд на встречку -- is the bane of life behind the wheel. Еду я спокойно, никому не мешая, и -- бац! -- на меня едет Джип. (I'm driving along, minding my own business, when BAM! There's a Jeep coming straight at me.) If you can't pull over, you have the worst accident of all: Он врезался в меня. (He crashed right into me.)
Today, even with fender-benders traffic is further slowed by the need to call the traffic cops -- still called гаишники even if the service is now ГИБДД -- to write up the insurance report. Part of the report is замеры (measurements). The very informative web site of the Russian traffic police notes solemnly: Все линейные размеры определяются только с помощью рулетки или складного метра. (All the linear measurements are made only with a rolled or folding tape measure.) What this really means: If you're behind the ДТП, once the tape measure comes out, pull out your cell phone and call the person you are driving to meet. Я застрял в пробке! Буду послезавтра! (I'm stuck in a traffic jam. I'll be there the day after tomorrow!)