# валяй на мясо!



## pimlicodude

From Solzhenitsyn:


> «Еврей-подмастерье кричал с балкона: “долой самодержавие”; другой, прилично одетый еврей кричал: “валяй на мясо”»; ещё «другой еврей, вырезав в портрете Государя голову, высунул свою в образовавшееся таким образом отверстие, и с [балкона] думы кричал толпе: “теперь я государь”»


I'm trying to understand валяй на мясо. Maybe that means "go right ahead and eat the meat" in a food context, but in the context of a revolution means "kill them"???


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## Rosett

pimlicodude said:


> in the context of a revolution means "kill them"???


Это призыв к массовому убийству «на мясо»

*валять*

5) только несовер.
валяй(те) разг. — go!, go ahead!, go on!, carry on!


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## pimlicodude

Rosett said:


> Это призыв к массовому убийству «на мясо»
> 
> *валять*
> 
> 5) только несовер.
> валяй(те) разг. — go!, go ahead!, go on!, carry on!


Thank you. It sounds like a very expressive phrase.


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## Maroseika

pimlicodude said:


> Thank you. It sounds like a very expressive phrase.


Cf. Судью на мыло! (Exclamation of football or other fans in point of a referee, literally implying using his corpse for making soap).


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## Sobakus

This use of «_на (мя́со, мы́ло итд.)»_ is generally equivalent to “for <making> meat, soap etc.” Unlike the English equivalent, however, it can be used without further context with the meaning “X will/should be used/is only good for making Y”, with the identity of X fixed by immediate context. The implied verb is usually _пуска́ть,_ but here _валя́ть_ is employed as an even more expressive synonym. An English parallel that comes to mind is “you're dead meat!”


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## pimlicodude

Sobakus said:


> This use of «_на (мя́со, мы́ло итд.)»_ is generally equivalent to “for <making> meat, soap etc.” Unlike the English equivalent, however, it can be used without further context with the meaning “X will/should be used/is only good for making Y”, with the identity of X fixed by immediate context. The implied verb is usually _пуска́ть,_ but here _валя́ть_ is employed as an even more expressive synonym. An English parallel that comes to mind is “you're dead meat!”


I didn't realise that валяй meant that. You mean the fundamental meaning is "go ahead (and turn them into) meat"?


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## Sobakus

pimlicodude said:


> I didn't realise that валяй meant that. You mean the fundamental meaning is "go ahead (and turn them into) meat"?


Er, isn't that the same meaning as you attribute to _валя́й_ in the OP, and that Rosett quotes as well? I don't understand what other meaning is involved. In any case, these translations don't accurately convey the verb's force. _валяй_ doesn't imply permission; the speaker presents themselves as the initiator even if the verb is used to signify consent. I would call it a semantically empty imperative, similar to _дава́й. go on and..._ is perhaps the only translation from among the proposed ones that comes close, but it's insistent, while _валяй_ is irreverently daring, a “whatever” attitude, something that a _ба́рин_ might say to a youth. It's an invitation to display _у́даль._

Despite Rosett's quotation from _Большой англо-русский и русско-английский словарь (2001),_ it does have a perfective equivalent in _сваля́ть._ Thus the same _барин_ might tell his wife _сваля́й нам блино́в!_ This latter one is more common nowadays than the imperfective.


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## nizzebro

I'm not so sure about the internal meaning of this phrase (assuming it's been properly rendered by the author) - because the spoken colloquial language has changed. I wouldn't be surprised if, with that валяй, they implied just "knock (them) down", which in the modern criminal but well-known slang goes as вали and means 'kill' without any extra "for meat".


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## Sobakus

nizzebro said:


> I'm not so sure about the internal meaning of this phrase (assuming it's been properly rendered by the author) - because the spoken colloquial language has changed. I wouldn't be surprised if, with that валяй, they implied just "knock (them) down", which in the modern criminal but well-known slang goes as вали and means 'kill' without any extra "for meat".


In order to consider this as a possibility one would have to show that _валять_ could be synonymous with _валить_ at all, let alone in the meaning “to kill”_._ These two verbs are so different however, that I just wouldn't consider this possibility. _валять_ “to make roll around” is an atelic (non-terminative) frequentative with connotations of playing and fooling; _валить_ “to make fall” is a telic (terminative) achievement. I don't see any point of contact between the two; an interchange like *_валять деревья_ or *_валить дурака_ is plainly inconceivable.


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## pimlicodude

Sobakus said:


> Er, isn't that the same meaning as you attribute to _валя́й_ in the OP, and that Rosett quotes as well?



Well, my initial meaning was to guess that валяй на мясо meant "tuck into the food, go ahead and eat the meat". So, no, that is not the same meaning at all. If a family is gathered around the table and there is meat on the plate. Can you say валяйте на мясо to tell people "go ahead, tuck into the meat"? After reading the discussion in this thread today, it seems валяй is just a more informal way of saying  давай and there is no link to eating food at all. I'm always ready to learn and be wrong in my hunches, and am glad there are so many very knowledgeable people here on this forum.


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## nizzebro

Sobakus said:


> These two verbs are so different however, that I just wouldn't consider this possibility. _валять_ is an atelic (non-terminative) frequentative with connotations of playing and fooling; _валить _is a telic (terminative) achievement. I don't see any point of contact between the two; an interchange like *_валять деревья_ or *_валить дурака_ is plainly inconceivable.


"Рубай" is also not an achievement-aimed one, and, we are dealing with old time colloquialisms - so who knows. I'm not insisting on that - only the "go ahead/do it" option  is not evident as well, being quite inconsistent syntactically.


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## pimlicodude

nizzebro said:


> "Рубай" is also not an achievement, and, we are dealing with old time colloquialisms - so who knows. I'm not insisting on that - only the "go ahead/do it" option  is not evident as well, being quite inconsistent syntactically.


валять and валить, while having different meanings, are cognates, I presume, etymologically speaking.


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## nizzebro

pimlicodude said:


> валять and валить, while having different meanings, are cognates, I presume, etymologically speaking.


Yes, but I only meant that, roughly speaking, the speakers could use валять as a "rollicking" version of валить. But I'm afraid to be accused of projecting the modern slang onto the time of the original phrase - while actually it can be rather the reverse.


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## Sobakus

pimlicodude said:


> Well, my initial meaning was to guess that валяй на мясо meant "tuck into the food, go ahead and eat the meat". So, no, that is not the same meaning at all. If a family is gathered around the table and there is meat on the plate. Can you say валяйте на мясо to tell people "go ahead, tuck into the meat"? After reading the discussion in this thread today, it seems валяй is just a more informal way of saying  давай and there is no link to eating food at all. I'm always ready to learn and be wrong in my hunches, and am glad there are so many very knowledgeable people here on this forum.


No, there's no relation to eating, and _валяй_ is very much comparable to _давай_ although the two are fully interchangeable only when used absolutely, without an object, as only _валять_ is properly transitive, while _давай _in this meaning is semantically vacuous and therefore also vacuous as regards its argument structure; it simply subjoins another clause, as in «давай [делай дело]», similar to the English _do_-verb, especially the negated _don't!_ (_валяй_ cannot subjoin clauses, so «валяй, делай дело» would be a coordination relation, separated by a comma). Transitively, _давай_ means "give, hand over", as in «давай мясо», and in this usage isn't synonymous with _валяй_ which would mean “cook up!”_._

There's a suitable verb for the situation you describe, and that is _налета́ть на._


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## pimlicodude

Sobakus said:


> No, there's no relation to eating, and _валяй_ is very much comparable to _давай_ although the two are fully interchangeable only when used absolutely, without an object, as only _валять_ is properly transitive, while _давай _in this meaning is semantically vacuous and therefore also vacuous as regards its argument structure; it simply subjoins another clause, as in «давай [делай дело]», similar to the English _do_-verb, especially the negated _don't!_ (_валяй_ cannot subjoin clauses, so «валяй, делай дело» would be a coordination relation, separated by a comma). Transitively, _давай_ means "give, hand over", as in «давай мясо», and in this usage isn't synonymous with _валяй_ which would mean “cook up!”_._
> 
> There's a suitable verb for the situation you describe, and that is _налета́ть на._


Thank you. I'll remember that: налетайте на еду!


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## Rosett

pimlicodude said:


> After reading the discussion in this thread today, it seems валяй is just a more informal way of saying давай


Not exactly, as we can say, «_давай, валяй_!» as a standalone phrase (with a special meaning) when giving someone a permission to talk nonsense.


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## Sobakus

Rosett said:


> Not exactly, as we can say, «_давай, валяй_!» as a standalone phrase (with a special meaning) when giving someone a permission to talk nonsense.


That's a nice example that appears to illustrate that _давай_ cannot subjoin another semantically empty imperative, but the two must be coordinated. «давай валяй!» in subordination forces a fully lexical meaning of _давай,_ and means “start rolling it around!”.


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