Talk:Kuzma's mother

Untitled
How do you get "Kuzma" out of Кузькина? That says, roughly, "koosz'kena" --IronMaidenRocks (talk) 22:37, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

[Kuz'ma] is the full name. Diminutive Kuzya. (Just a root remains with the end "ya".) Diminutive playful [Kuz'ka], k is added. Kuzk+in is the adjective masculine, Kuzkina feminine. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.190.50.38 (talk) 19:13, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

"The origin of the expression is nuclear."
I don't know if this is intentionally in the context of the Tsar Bomba, but it sounds more like an unwanted pun. Maybe the author wanted to write "unclear"? ;-) 89.245.237.248 (talk) 11:04, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Equivalents in English?
The translation is "we will show you who is who". It is the phrase that is brutal, the action may be brutal or not depending on the context. Here the context does not imply any brutalness. In Russian, people say not what the things are, but what they think and how they feel about things, so there's a big difference in how we choose words to express something, in comparison with English. This considered, here the feeling is brute and the action is not, therefore "to make life hot for someone" is very hardly an equivalent. Can anyone suggest something better? - 89.110.23.178 (talk) 11:53, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
 * By the way. Could anyone explain why there is Tsar Bomba in the "See Also" section and not, say, differential equations? Also, where the statement that Mikhelson's etymology "resembles some sort of naming tabo" is taken from — from the very book of his or from the phantasy of the wikipedian who added it? In the latter case it should be eliminated. - 89.110.16.166 (talk) 14:53, 28 February 2014 (UTC)


 * One of the Tsar Bomba's many names is "Kuzma's Mother", meaning "This one's for you!!". It is perhaps today better known that Khrushchev's use of the term with Nixon. SkoreKeep (talk) 22:59, 15 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Who called it so, and who gave the term this meaning? You see, I use this word in the meaning "economical, social and scientific achievements of the Soviet Union", not deliberately but per the natural logic of the term. I acknowledge that the meaning of the word is human-centered rather than thing-centered, and so, among things, it can mean any thing at all, though. - 89.110.23.178 (talk) 06:58, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Anyway, no matter who called it so, I think in this case the cross-link is justified. I leave it to anybody who agrees that it is to restore it. - 89.110.23.178 (talk) 07:02, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

Would "[take you] behind the woodshed" be a close equivalent?
This seems to have the same elements of threat of punishment (but not deadly punishment), rural origins, and requires cultural context to understand. And it's used metaphorically fairly frequently. 71.41.210.146 (talk) 06:24, 19 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I think any insult that uses the word "mother" is certain to be rude.--Jack Upland (talk) 05:51, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

The meaning of the expression
The expression allows for very different interpretations, Khrusciov was not trying to be specific or meaningful, he was being emotional rather than argumentative and was talking for himself rather than for others (if you ask me for a source, this statement of mine does not need a source since it necessarily stems from a native speaker's intuition). The most innocent interpretation of the expression is "We will show you the right way to do that makes people happy", "Kuzka's mother" being a signification of "the right way to do that makes people happy". For a Westerner, especially an American, such signification must be illogical, but it is logical for a Russian, the confusion is due to very differing philosophies of language that Russian-speaking people or English-speaking people have. For Russians, if two things cause the same mental perception, it's enough of a reason to name them the same way; for English, it is not, they have other criteria, so the English speech looks very peculiar. Even among those in US who had discerned here a potential for such cultural difference, many seemed to have preferred the least innocent interpretation, namely that "Kuzka's mother" denominated a threat of war, just because they liked to and for no other reason. In USSR, of course, this would have caused a natural feeling of offence, because the Soviet people were assumed to be suicidal morons with no plans or reasons for the future, which was not true at that time. - 89.110.6.108 (talk) 15:38, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Nonsense. - üser:Altenmann >t 05:46, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

There is no equivalent in English.
Gonna sic the dawg on ya.

Um, could "There is no equivalent in English" perhaps be adopted as a catchphrase for the frequent examples of extreme stupidity which appear in Wikipedia?

David Lloyd-Jones (talk) 04:30, 13 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Yeah, just as your comment is an example of extreme smartassness. - üser:Altenmann >t 05:40, 13 November 2015 (UTC)
 * P.S. In any case I removed this statement (about equivalence) from the article as unreferenced. Thanks for the tip. - üser:Altenmann >t 05:44, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

Show ass (naked)
- is the correct translation. 85.216.185.153 (talk) 21:05, 15 January 2023 (UTC)