Thread: How do you say "The sacrifice of hiding in a lie" in Russian?

Originally Posted by CoffeeCup

Taking into account all similar threads here the answer is that people like to make a tattoo in a language nobody around can understand. If the people around were able to see and read the tattoo they would do it automatically and would not pay a lot of attention to it. But if the tattoo were in an unknown language they would stumble upon it and ask the question "What does it mean?" If it were a real Russian saying the direct translation to English would be clumsy and fail the purpose to amuse the person seeing the tattoo. But if the tattoo were in clumsy Russian it translation would turn into highly poetical English saying and makes the WOW factor for the person seeing the tattoo.

On the contrary, if I was going to get a tattoo of any foreign language, I'd prefer it to be poetic and beautiful in that original language, even if it was somewhat clumsy in English. Besides, it's always possible to translate idiomatically, which makes the English translation sound natural and fluent. If the translation includes something specific and essential to the culture which speaks that particular language, that only adds more layers of meaning and leads to a more interesting story.

Besides, people often desire authenticity in their tattoos. If someone has a tattoo of a Chinese symbol that means "supermarket", they (and their non-Chinese friends) won't know the difference from the symbol that means "spirituality". But 99% of people would still choose the tattoo meaning "spirituality", even if it looked less nice than the one meaning "supermarket". Why? Because they want it to be authentic. (Of course this may not apply to you, OceanEyes, I'm not one to tell you what is the best tattoo for you. That's something personal. And I'm not one to talk anyway, the only tattoo I have has no deeper meaning than my favourite band!)

Originally Posted by it-ogo

Here is a classical quotation from Chekhov:
"Тля ест траву, ржа - железо, а лжа - душу"

Literally: Aphid eats/cankers/corrodes grass, rust - iron, lie - soul.

Sounds like straightforward moralising to me

Also why is it «лжа»? I can't see that in the declensions of «ложь»...

Originally Posted by Demonic_Duck

Sounds like straightforward moralising to me

As a first approach - yeah, but as usual with classical quotations there is much more behind if one knows the source. It was not by Chekhov directly but by his fictitious hero.

BTW Most well-known collection of moralizing in Russian classic literature often can be found on humor sites. Warning: no way of adequate translation.

Originally Posted by Demonic_Duck

Also why is it «лжа»? I can't see that in the declensions of «ложь»...

That fictitious hero found that it sounds better. More aphoristic. Тля-ржа-лжа is a kind of rhyme.

Originally Posted by it-ogo

That fictitious hero found that it sounds better. More aphoristic. Тля-ржа-лжа is a kind of rhyme.

It turns out there was the old archaic form "лжа" (Намеренное искажение истины; неправда, ложь.). It existed in Old Russian, here is the link:

лжа