Talk:ради бога
“For God's sake”[edit]
(Notifying Atitarev, Benwing2, Cinemantique, Useigor, Guldrelokk, Tetromino, PUC, Brutal Russian): Are you sure we can separate a meaning “for God's sake”? After all I am acquainted with this exclamation and also after double-checking the phrase on the web I opine that there is only a limited intersection with our English examples. I can think of it meaning “please”, so various dictionaries gloss it in Russian, but then again I think we don't even correctly gloss the English for God's sake. The English basically just means “please”, this is the expression of “impatience” (a rude way to say “do it now!” or utter a demand, thereby distinguished from polite “please”); we already gloss the Russian as “please” so for God's sake belongs to the same line, however I note that in Russian it is an expression of tiredness or explicit indifference but generally not angry, different from the English. Fay Freak (talk) 16:04, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
- @Fay Freak: the tiredness and indifference sense is usual in modern speech. But in older literature, ради бога was more often used as emphatic, urgent imploring:
- ― Господа, ради бога, оставьте: это страшно, ― сказал он с тоскою. (Куприн)
- ― Ради бога, ради всего святого, не говорите вы о том, что уже известно всем и каждому! (Чехов)
- ― Отвяжись ты от меня, говорю, ради бога! (Тургенев)
- ― Только не проболтайся, ради бога, где эта благодать родится. (Мельников-Печерский)
- et cetera, et cetera. These senses correspond very well to one of the common uses "for God's sake". In most cases, they do not correspond to "for God's sake" used to signal anger/irritation. I will adjust the glosses in our entry a bit to make this clearer. Tetromino (talk) 20:12, 22 August 2022 (UTC)