Language desk
< April 20	<< Mar \| April \| May >>	April 22 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

April 21[edit]

Difference between "His main success lies in... " and "His success mainly lies in"[edit]

Is there any semantic difference between "His main success lies in..." and "His success mainly lies in..."? Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1.202.187.153 (talk) 01:03, 21 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, there is a difference. The first one means he had different forms of success but his main success lies in X. The second one means he had one success but it can be attributed to different things, the main one being X. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 01:15, 21 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

rayoysfirkom? (Soviet acronym in Yiddish)[edit]

Anyone has an idea what 'rayoysfirkom' standards for? It appears here http://www.nlr.ru/poisk/paper_idish_e.html . Is it a Komsomol committee? a Rayon government body? --Soman (talk) 10:22, 21 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

User:Medeis should be able to answer this. It is indeed Eastern Yiddish. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 12:36, 21 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the confidence, but neither Yiddish nor Soviet jargon is my forte. Jackof Oz and Lyuboslov Yezykin are the go-toes on advanced or technical Russian and I guess Sluzzelin is for Yiddish. μηδείς (talk) 16:38, 21 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don't really know Yiddish fluently, and it takes me forever to read Hebrew script, but the language is quite accessible by ear for native speakers of German, and I've always loved Klezmer (and jokes in Yiddish).---Sluzzelin talk 17:40, 21 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I've had 8 years of German, and have a Yiddish station from NYC programmed on the car. (Love Klezmer.) I laugh at the commercials, and enjoy the music. There's no way I'd ever have gotten the jargon from oysfirn, though. μηδείς (talk) 19:55, 21 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is indeed something like the raion executive committee. "oysfirn" (אויספֿירן) means "to execute" ("ausführen" in German). I think the Russian equivalent is Райисполком (Rayispolkom). ---Sluzzelin talk 13:48, 21 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

We have a Rayispolkom, which redirects to Executive committee. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:48, 21 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

To confirm what's been said here, Rokhkind's 1940 Yiddish-Russian dictionary (available online here) lists oysfirkom (אויספירקאָמ in Soviet spelling) as meaning исполком. 184.171.212.61 (talk) 07:47, 22 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks! --Soman (talk) 21:41, 23 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]