A Russian Ear for Aussie Idiom

When asked if it was possible to glance through the 2,000-odd cards of his incipient dictionary of Australian idiom, Professor Alexander Vladimirovich Kunin did not exactly say no: He offered a "Captain Cook" instead. The rhyming slang -- which stands for "look" -- playing on the name of the English sailor whose voyages of discovery led to the founding of Australia, is but one of the characteristics that so attracts the legendary 85-year-old linguistics professor to his task.Kunin is three years down the track of compiling the dictionary, complete with Russian translations, explanations and quotations. It may seem an unlikely undertaking in Moscow, but not for Kunin, who has spent his lifetime collecting English idiom. Kunin first became interested in the subject while studying English at Moscow University shortly after the Russian Revolution. In 1932, he brought out what he claims was the first Russian-English idiom dictionary."It sold like hotcakes," he says, savoring his use of the phrase. He followed up with two more such books, culminating in the 1955 edition of his 1,155-page English-Russian Phraseological Dictionary, which was reprinted for the third time in 1986.Throughout, he was one of the best-known professors at Moscow State Linguistics University. These days, restricted by a muscle disorder that makes it hard for him to sit or stand unaided, he no longer teaches at the university, but continues to supervise doctoral theses. His immobility does not affect his work, which relies on his reading of Australian literature and using other idiom dictionaries.A doctor of philology, he is writing the dictionary partly to make amends for his past efforts, he says."I thought Australian idiom deserved to be treated fairly and I hadn't quite done so," he explains, almost contritely. "And then I became infatuated with its colorful character."He reels off a few of his favorite expressions: "That's a sum Jack Rice wouldn't jump over," denoting a large sum of money and referring to the steeplechase horse Jack Rice; "Send her down, Hughie," a plea for rain addressed to God, referred to by the familiar and slightly disrespectful "Hughie," which may be a word or sound-unit borrowed from the indigenous aboriginals and assimilated into English.Kunin traces the Australian national character in the idiom, which he says, more than other English-speaking communities, cannot be confidently marked off from its close relative, slang. He spies a hard-working, independent, earthy people, with a strong penchant for games of chance and a corresponding emphasis on the importance of luck in life.Within the idiom, the professor says, can be traced the history of the country -- firstly, prison jargon, reflecting the founding of the country as a British penal colony, then the interaction with the Aboriginals and settling down to cultivate a harsh land with radically different animals and plants.The Aboriginal interaction is reflected in a phrase which says someone has no hope of success: "He's got two chances: Buckley's and none," referring to William Buckley, an escapee who lived in isolation for decades among the Aboriginals.Professor Kunin acknowledges that the chances of him getting his work into print may be Buckley's and none. The market for his book is there, he believes, but changing times in the Russian publishing industry may have pushed prices beyond the reach of many. The price of one of Kunin's books was recently raised from 9,000 to 24,000 rubles -- a sum Jack Rice really wouldn't jump over.