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Thread: How do you say, "everything to nothing" in russian?

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    Hey guys! I had another question regarding this. In the image below there are the accents above the first "E" and I was wondering if that was correct or should it be a "e" with the accents?

    ТАТТОО.jpg

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    Завсегдатай Throbert McGee's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by everythingtonothing View Post
    Hey guys! I had another question regarding this. In the image below there are the accents above the first "E" and I was wondering if that was correct or should it be a "e" with the accents?
    It should be ВСЁ РАДИ НИЧЕГО (if you want all caps) or Всё Ради Ничего (each word capped) or Всё ради ничего (only first word capped) or всё ради ничего (all lower case) -- but in any event, the first "e" has two dots over it. If you write все without dots over the "е", the pronounciation of the word changes a bit, and it means "everybody/everyone" not "everything."

    But by the way, I'd suggest a completely different "translation" that may or may not be appropriate for what you want:

    Суета сует, сказал Екклесиаст, суета сует -- всё суета!

    This is the standard Russian translation of Ecclesiastes 1:2, which in modern English can be rendered:

    "The most time-wasting of wastes-of-time," said the holy teacher, "the most pointless of all pointlessness! Everything is meaningless and trivial!"

    However, most English speakers are more familiar with the old-fashioned phrasing from the "King James Version" (KJV), which incidentally was completed in 1611 and thus just celebrated its 400th birthday:

    "Vanity of vanities," saith the Preacher, "vanity of vanities; all is vanity."

    P.S. Since this is for a tattoo, you can just shorten it to:

    Суета сует, всё суета!

    Which is rather musical in Russian, and pronounced:

    soo-yet-TAH
    soo-YET
    f's-YOH
    soo-yet-TAH
    Говорит Бегемот: "Dear citizens of MR -- please correct my Russian mistakes!"

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