Missing the Double Entendre - Can You Help?

[totalcroatia]

My Croatian is reasonable, but even a couple of Croatian friends can't help me out with this one, so am hoping one of you can.

Am writing an article (not Croatia-related) about double entendres and foreign words. I was working for an organisation in Tajikistan called Care, which caused much hilarity with the locals as ker is Dari for the male appendage, at which point I realised why everyone laughed when I introduced myself as Paul from Care International.

I posted on the writer forum where I write for some other contributions and have had some great material. And then this from a (I think) Bosnian writer:


Paul, since you are in Croatia you might already know this, if not- here is
the one that could help you get a deeper understanding of Croatian.

If your car battery fails in Croatia, you should never ask someone for help
using phrase "push my car".
Tell us, why? Please.

Any clues? PM if very rude.

[gmh]

I think you might have to ask him for an explanation on this one.
Does he mean if you ask it in English or in Croatian ?

I can't think of anything unless you car is a Nissan Koo Rats and even then it's a stretch.

If your neighbour has a smoke house, and you do not.
Never be tempted to ask him to smoke your sausages.
'molim vas puši mi kobasice'

[Slatkica]

uuuuum I think if you simply translate it from English to Croatian, it sounds a little sexual ;D

[totalcroatia]

i went back to him and asked him to explain a couple of days ago

Hi Paul,

Sorry, I didn't mean to trouble you.

'My' is very similar to Croatian 'Moj' (pron.- moy) - and has the same meaning.

Push is very close to Croatian 'Puši' (pron. pooshi), which is the imperative form of 'pušiti' ( to smoke).

And, like in your Tajikistan example, 'Car',pronounced 'Kar', is shorter for 'Karina', which is a coloquial for the males appendage.

So, 'Push(i) m(o)y kar(ina)', translated in Croatian, literary means- 'smoke my ****'. And the verb

'puši' (smoke), insted, 'cuclaj' (suck), as in English, is the one used in Croatian for the phrase with the same meaning.

I am surprised that locals missed that. Soundwise, it is prety obvious, though you might be right- there may be some dialect variation as 'kar(ina)' is probably more common term in Bosnia and Serbia than in Croatia.

Cheers,

Bekir

[MartinM]

'karina'? Yes, I have heard one reference to the male organ as that.

[gmh]

I have never heard it, and most of my Croatian family are Bosnian.
Kurac is used around here.

[justapixel]

You really have to work more on your vocabulary. ;D

.

[MartinM]

jp - who, me or gmh?

Even just the letter 'k' is used to denote the, err, 'k' word.

'Karlovac' is also used where I am, but in purgeraj probably not

[totalcroatia]

As a vaguely interesting addendum to this, I wrote an article on driving in Albania for an online magazine 3 months ago. The article gets a few hits a day, but went mental the other night with the term 'what does car mean in Albania'.

A friend was talking about the latest Top Gear programme he saw that night, testing cars for the Albanian mafia, in which Clarkson referred to the word 'car' having the same meaning as karina here.

ker in Dari in Tajikistan, car in Albanian, karina in Bosnian/regions of Croatia. What's the link - Turkish?

[justapixel]

Afaik, "kara" is Turkish word for "black" and is commonly found int the surnames of Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia.

Croatian (Bosnian etc.) slang is "kara", commonly used in hyperbolic (but of course) version "karina", there is also a derived verb "karati" which has a distinctly different meaning in central Dalmatia (to argue). There's a famous Dalmatian song with a verse "Galebi se karaju" which in Zagreb translates into Discovery Channel narrative.

.

[MartinM]

ROFL

Yes "karati" - as "to argue" is used where I am as most of the people here come from the north Dalmatia/Zadar area.

[johnnyenglish]

Feb 1, 2011 14:29:41 GMT 1 totalcroatia said:

If your car battery fails in Croatia, you should never ask someone for help
using phrase "push my car".
Tell us, why? Please.

Could be as simple as this...

Puše (pronounced poosh-e) means blow (in 'both' senses of the word)
Majka (pronounced like my-car) means mother.

So push my car to a Croat wouldn't sound unlike puše majka, meaning your mother blows

It's a little bit of a stretch, but this is probably what you're getting at.


Edit: Balkan folks have similar issues when buying walnut-stuffed apples in English speaking countries