• Я покажу вам Кузькину мать!
[ya pa-ka-zhu vam kuz'-ki-nu mat']
Literally: I'll show you Kuzma's mother!

🔻This Khrushchev's famous phrase, delivered at the UN Assembly, was translated literally as 'Kuzma's mother.'

🔻The meaning of the phrase was completely unclear, lending the threat a sinister quality. Subsequently, the expression 'Kuzma's mother' was also used to refer to the Soviet Union's atomic bombs.

Meaning:
This is an expression of an unspecified threat or punishment, such as "to teach someone a lesson", "to punish someone in a brutal way".

🔻It entered the history of the foreign relations of the Soviet Union as part of the image of Nikita Khrushchev, along with the shoe-banging incident.

PS despite the fact that Кузька is a diminutive form from the proper name Кузьма, in the phrase 'показать кузькину мать' it is written with a small letter as it doesn't literally refer to Kuzma's mother.

❓Have you ever heard this expression?

#phraseology
#spoken_Russian
#USSR

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To celebrate Spain's national day, the local Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a video about the country, which starts with footage of... Moscow's Gorky Park.

🔻"Finally, everyone knows what 'Spanish shame' means," commented Maria Zakharova, the official representative of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

• Испанский стыд
[is-pan-skiy styt]
SLT: Spanish shame

Meaning:
This is a phrase used to describe the feeling of embarrassment or awkwardness you experience when witnessing someone else's cringeworthy behaviour.

Origin:
The term "Spanish shame" is allegedly rooted in England in the 1990s-2000s, when Spanish drama series flooded the UK. The content and characters were made so poorly that many British viewers felt ashamed for them. From this "Spanish shame" originated. In English, the term "cringe" is used, and there is no "Spanish shame".

🇪🇦Version: https://telegra.ph/Ispanskij-styd-10-13

Source: RT на русском

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#phraseologyinpolitics

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