EVERYTHING BUT THE MOUSE.

From akuaku, a most enjoyable Russian limerick:

Говорят, что у нас на Урале
Деревянный компьютер собрали.
Без гвоздей, топором!
Винт, модем, сидиром!
Мышь живую в сарае поймали.

Govoryat chto u nas na Urale
Derevyannyi kompyuter sobrali.
Bez gvozdei, toporom!
Vint, modem, sidirom!
Mysh’ zhivuyu v sarae poimali.

The brilliant version by frequent commenter Noetica (a literal translation is in the extended entry):

They made in the Urals, it’s said,
A PC that’s wooden, instead.
With no nails, just an axe,
And with cheap hardware hacks –
Like the mouse, which they caught in the shed.

(Via Avva. The slang term vint for ‘hard drive’ is apparently from Winchester, “the name of one of the first popular hard disk drive technologies developed by IBM in 1973.”)


Literal translation:

They say that in the Urals
they’ve assembled a wooden computer.
Without nails, using an axe!
Hard drive, modem, CD-ROM!
The mouse they caught alive in the barn.

Comments

  1. Gosh, I remember HDs being called Winchesters when I was a kid in England.

  2. Douglas Davidson says

    Jargon file says: “There is a legend that the name arose because the original 1973 engineering prototype for what later became the IBM 3340 featured two 30-megabyte volumes; 30–30 became ‘Winchester’ when somebody noticed the similarity to the common term for a famous Winchester rifle”.

  3. I love it. I was trying to puzzle out what a сидир was, thinking I was looking at the instrumental.

  4. A Russian-speaking colleague tells me this:
    “I am afraid, the beauty of the third line will escape the Western reader – it refers to the historical phenomenon of Northern Russia – there are a number of wonderful churches and monasteries build of wood only – they still stand tall after many centuries.”

  5. They made in the Urals, it’s said,
    A PC that’s wooden, instead.
    With no nails, just an axe,
    And with cheap hardware hacks –
    Like the mouse, which they caught in the shed.

  6. Brilliant! I fooled around for a bit trying to produce an English equivalent, but gave up too quickly.

  7. %syn(Cool|Nice|Rulezz)% %syn(blog,|portal| site ! I)% hope to make %syn(my own|own weblog|my diary)%, not worse than yours 😉

  8. Michael Farris says

    Perhaps Noetica’s version should be promoted to the front page?

  9. Skazano — sdelano (no sooner said than done)!

  10. Thank you! I am gratified to be promoted to the front row, just this once. (I confess: I have trouble resisting re-rhyming whatever has been de-rhymed.)
    There once was a figure called rhyme
    Which turned out to take too much time.
    So translators decided
    To do not what I did,
    But “focus on what’s more sublime”.

  11. Since the OEDILF loves limericks, I just had to post this one there for everyone to appreciate.

  12. I should say, I posted it in the forum, not as a limerick to go in the project.

  13. Brilliant translation.
    @ Affetuoso: you forgot Finland

  14. Otto A. Schell says

    Hmm, figure called rhyme…
    I remember a rhyme, in german
    Ist denn das Volk der Reimerchen
    Seit Gottfried Benn im Eimerchen?
    Wolfgang Neuss
    Don´t translate it in elsewhotsoever…!
    mfg oas

Speak Your Mind

*