Phonetic Fun with Feces

Serbian is a Slavic language, more specifically a South Slavic language. It is a cousin of Russian and Ukrainian generally coming from the same mother language. Exciting, right?

Anyway, there are many words that these languages share. Sometimes the definitions are the same, sometimes they differ. And amusing example is the word "ponos". In Russian and Ukrainian, ponos is diarrhea. In Serbian (and other South Slavic languages), ponos = pride. Can you see where this is going? Russian and Ukrainian speakers visiting Yugoslavia were often amused by signs reading "Tito je nas ponos", which to a Serbian speaker reads "Tito is our pride". Now, to the tourist from the East, this of course read "Tito is our diarrhea". Hilarity often ensued.

Fast forward a couple of decades. I was recently in Kyiv with colleagues from Macedonia, Bosnia, and other countries in which I work (see previous post). They had never been to Ukraine before and found time to enjoy the delights that Kyiv has to offer even with our intensive training schedule. Once we decided to visit the supermarket near our hotel. We split up into groups and made our purchases (I was delighted to find instant oatmeal and my favorite Ukrainian beer, others were loading up on sweets and vodka). Some of us were waiting for others to exit the store and when they finally did they were crying and laughing and doing the pee-pee dance. In the store, they happened upon this:

Let me explain what you are looking at. The brand of this canned fish is "Proliv". Which just happens to mean diarrhea in Serbian, etc. In Ukrainian/Russian it means flood (which isn't that much more assuring in canned fish if you ask me). Even better? This particular product is called "Veliki" meaning "big uns". Doesn't that sound tasty? I wish I had known what a gem this was when I used to have a funny can display in my apartment in Odesa... including this and this.

An item that is only related tenuously... there is yet another festival in Serbia that would be fascinating to attend- the World Testicle Cooking Festival (say that five fast) held each May. Can't make it? No worries, you can just pick yourself up a copy of Cooking With Balls.