If you don’t want to be lectured mercilessly, memorize the phrase for joining a line: Кто последний ? (Who’s last?). But since крайний дом на улице does mean “the last house on the street,” it’s easy to see how Russians confuse it with последний, which is the final (last) one of a line of something or in a time period. Крайний is derived from the noun край (edge) and means at the edge of something, like крайний дом на улице (farthest house on the street) or крайний срок (deadline, i.e., the farthest limit of time). The other perennial grammar mistake that Russian speakers loathe is using крайний (farthest, maximum) for последний (last). But people find these forms inappropriate in the boardroom - either because it sounds like an uneducated person or because it sounds like an insensitive person making fun of uneducated people or trying to be cute. These are the sorts of words you might hear from very old people in a very distant village. There is also a form of the feminine possessive её - ейный, but that has apparently not re-entered common usage to the same extent. The grammatical “mistakes” that have Russian speakers stamping their feet in protest are the ancient/folk forms of их (their) - ихний and его (his) - евоный. But there are homegrown annoyances, grammatical “mistakes” that are becoming commonplace, and a few calques from English thrown in, too. Of course, many of the words and expressions are foreign words (mostly English), like асап (ASAP) or the truly dreadful я на колле (I’m on a call). Russian speakers are also bothered by their changing language. It is not a synonym for “I’m writing you today…” Delete immediately.Īnd yet…and yet… it’s just the language changing. I personally cannot stand emails that begin “I’m reaching out to you today…” For me, “to reach out to someone” is to make a concerted effort to communicate with someone in order to help them or involve them in an endeavor.

And certainly when we see a Shakespeare play and chuckle over every “forsooth.” And definitely when we pick up Chaucer and put it down again because we can’t understand a thing.Īnd yet… and yet when language is changing around us, we are uncomfortable, annoyed or outraged. We are reminded of it every time we pick up a Jane Austen novel and marvel at the quaint phrases.

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