?’?…???? ?????????€?µ?‰?°?µ?‚????: No entry
There is nothing worse than trying to pass yourself off as a fluent and knowledgeable Russian speaker and being asked a question that you can't answer and — worse yet — never thought to ask yourself. So it was with me when a friend looked at a lot of signs prohibiting entry and asked the difference between ?·?°???€?µ?‰?°?‚?? (to prohibit) and ?????????€?µ?‰?°?‚?? (to prohibit). "They're basically synonyms," I began, "but…" But what? Then I remembered a Russian translator who told me what she says when a student asks a question she can't answer: "It's a matter of usage."
The usage ploy helped me save face, but it was a cheat. What is the difference between these two words?
Dictionaries make clear that ?·?°???€?µ?‰?°?‚?? and ?????????€?µ?‰?°?‚?? are in fact synonyms. But ?·?°???€?µ?‰?°?‚?? had many more examples than ?????????€?µ?‰?°?‚??. So perhaps ?????????€?µ?‰?°?‚?? is just a less common word?
To test that theory I ran them through a search engine and saw that ?·?°???€?µ?‰?°?‚?? had about eight times more hits than ?????????€?µ?‰?°?‚??. The delightful Google Ngram Viewer confirmed this with a graph that showed consistently more use of ?·?°???€?µ?‰?°?‚?? over the last 200 years, with a peak at 1808, a smaller one at 1833 and a zig-zagging decline until the mid-1980s, after which it picked up again slightly.
?’???????€?µ?‰?°?‚?? peaked dramatically in 1833 — what on earth were Russians up to in 1833 that needed to be prohibited? — and then petered out to almost nothing by 1930.
So now I had some of the picture. ?’???????€?µ?‰?°?‚?? isn't used as much today as ?·?°???€?µ?‰?°?‚??. But can they be used interchangeably?
For that I checked an associative dictionary. ?’???????€?µ?‰?°?‚?? was associated with religion, laws, monastic leaders and princes. But ?·?°???€?µ?‰?°?‚?? had the same associations plus another dozen or so — including alcohol, marriage and etiquette. More confirmation of what I already knew: ?·?°???€?µ?‰?°?‚?? is more common. But not much help in figuring out when and with what activities ?????????€?µ?‰?°?‚?? and ?·?°???€?µ?‰?°?‚?? could be used.
Then I did a search on the Russian corpus, hoping to find categories of activities that were only prohibited with one word or the other. For hours I plowed through the centuries, reading examples of everything from tweets to monastery rules.
And I came up empty — almost.
It doesn't appear that ?·?°???€?µ?‰?°?‚?? is used for some activities and ?????????€?µ?‰?°?‚?? for others. People are prohibited from reading books, playing in the garden and eating certain foods with both words. But after about a hundred pages of quotes, I began to see the stylistic differences more clearly.
?’???????€?µ?‰?°?‚?? is most often found on signs. ?’?…???? ?????????€?µ?‰?°?µ?‚????. (No entry.) ???????€?‚???‹?µ ???°?????‚???? ?€?°?????????°?‚?? ???‚?€?????? ?????????€?µ?‰?°?µ?‚????. (Drinking of alcoholic beverages is strictly forbidden.) ???? ???°?·?????? ?…???????‚?? ?????????€?µ?‰?°?µ?‚????. (Don't walk on the grass.)
And then there's the matter of the prefix ??????- (or ?????·-, depending on what kind of vowel it precedes). It's almost never used today to form a perfective verb, so it has a slightly old-fashioned feel. In many cases, it gives an official, bookish or ceremonial shade to a word. In some cases it has the sense of raising something up, with a general connotation of "on high."
So I finally made my rule: ?—?°???€?µ?‰?°?‚?? and ?????????€?µ?‰?°?‚?? are synonyms, but today ?????????€?µ?‰?°?‚?? has the stylistic connotation of bureaucratic, ceremonial or lofty language.
Twelve hours and 20 books later, it turns out it's a question of usage after all.
Michele A. Berdy, a Moscow-based translator and interpreter, is author of "The Russian Word's Worth" (Glas), a collection of her columns.