The great Nedeflorena show

Since the recent talented chick happens to be Romanian (a sad fate she escaped through emigration like most sane Romanians to date, throughout the many centuries) I found myself inclined to check out some Romanian blogs.

This started (and ended) on the blog of perhaps my favourite lolcow a decade ago, back when Trilema was written in Romanian by the archetypal paradigm of Romanian-ity, for the use (more generally, misuse) of the lesser copies floating around. I left her a comment, which she however didn't publish, and I don't expect will ever publish.

This is an unfortunate state of affairs, given that my ten lines are in fact more important, valuable, interesting and generally speaking worthy under whatever paradigm you may choose than her entire life. So I'll reproduce it below, and we can work through the impossible tension of practical Romanian in an ultimately doomed but perhaps instructive attempt to translate it to English. The original :

Mircea Popescu
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
September 10, 2015 at 3:42 pm

Meri tu Nede, alti zece ani trecura peste tine, da’ te lasara fix cum te gasira. Tot blocata-n infantilisme de-astea triste despre cum niste oameni credeau ca tu te futi da’ stai sa vezi cum de fapt tu nu te futeai, si uite ce baiat dragut ai imbirligat tu sa stea la poza linga figura ta de mamaie la patruzeci ? I se rupe aluia, o proasta ca tine in plus sau in minus ie fix ca si-un frigider de rezerva asa, il remarci de doua ori pe an, o data dintre care pentru ca ai venit rupt de beat si aparent te-ai pisat in el. Cum i se rupe aluia i se rupe lumii-ntregi si fiecaruia-n parte, azi-miine-ti pleaca si pisica si ramii cu stupifeminismu’ gol.

E si consecventa asta o calitate, da’ nu pentru toata lumea. Hai sa zic ca intr-o vreme aeru’ tau de Veta Vestejeta-n natura moarta cu pisica si iluzii era oarecum comic, da’ a cam expirat si ala. Se da pensie la vagabondaj sau ce exact mai astepti tu de la viata ?

Pe bune acuma, deci ce se va intimpla dupa mintea ta ? Ultima proasta de s-o luat cu ceva capsunar aromatic din clasa ta de liceu industrial (bine, bine, altul nu era, ce puteai sa faci acuma, te-am inteles, te-am inteles, acu’ explica si la perna) are aspiratii mai inalte de douajcinci de euro. Si avea, si-acum zece ani, cind muncea strada prin Barcelona sau pe unde. Ce mai speri tu exact ? Sa se lamureasca toti aia zece mii de oameni care te-au vazut ca de fapt tu nu esti o Julia Ann Moore mai mica, mai proasta si refugiata intr-o limba minora cu un secol intirziere, ci de fapt s-au inselat ei ?

Du-te mai bine de-ti fa un breton frumos la vene, nu e de tine lumea asta. Nu te merita, ce sa mai.

And now, in Shakespeare's :

Go hangⁱ, Nedeⁱⁱ, another decade passed over you, to leave you as it found you. Still stuck in the sort of sad infantilism, going on about how some people thought you were fucking but hang on you weren't really fucking and look what a cute boy took his picture with your 40yomammaⁱⁱⁱ mug ? He couldn't care less^iv, a dumbass such as you^v more or less is exactly like a spare fridge : you notice it twice a year, one of which because you came home blind drunk and apparently took a piss in it. And as he couldn't care less, the whole world and every individual making it up couldn't care less, won't be long now before your cat leaves too and you'll be left in the nude stupifeminism.^vi

Consistency is a quality, sure, but not all the time. Let's say that at some point your airs of Veta Vestejeta^vii in static nature with a cat and illusions were somewhat comedic, but even that's pretty much expired by now. They have pensions for the career of being a tramp or what exactly do you expect from the future anymore ?^viii

Seriously, what's going to happen, in your oppinion ? The dumbest of the dumb in your vocational (yes, yes, there wasn't another one where you lived, I get it - now go explain it to the pillow, too) highschool class that married some strawberryman^ix still looks above twenny five euros^x And had, too, a decade ago back when she was working the streets of Barcelona or wherever. What exactly are you hoping for ? That the ~ten thousand people who ever saw you^xi figure out that they were wrong all this time, and you aren't after all a sort of Julia Ann Moore only shorter, dumber, taking refuge in a minor language a century too late ?

Better go cut some nice bangs out of your wrists, it's not for you, this world. It's not deserving of your greatness, what.

This said, if you're ever in Romania I hearthily recommend you check out whatever "theatrical" presentation/book show/whatever she might be doing at the time. It will go something like this, it's hit and miss but if it hits you'll be laughing for many years to come. Which is - let's be honest - rare enough.

1. Meri is a specifically Transylvanian shortening of the imperative form of the verb a merge, which'd be mergi. It is also an idiomatic in the second degree, which is to say : the phrase has for many years been used as a sendoff in many varied forms, "mergi si te spinzura" (go hang) & "mergi si-mpusca-te" (go shoot yourself) being by far the more common and disputing among themselves cannonicality, but many colorful, throwaway forms are also used ("meri si da nume la rime" = go baptise earthworms). Such ample use has it seen in this particular idiomatic usage, that it became automatically indicative of this usage - saying "meri tu" pressuposes there's a sendoff attached and the speaker needn't even bother adding it. Because it's been so widely employed and so thoroughly researched the language itself considers it a solved problem! Fancy that, you're not even expected to come up with anything here, it's too done. Can you name a similar situation in English ? [↩]
2. The... let's call her a woman, for unclear reasons. So, the woman's name is actually Lorena, at least according to her mother, but due to her very bizarre perisexual behaviours I called her Nedeflorena once and that was it. As you might have guessed, it references absent defloration. As you probably don't know, such an ungodly state is deeply shameful in Romanian culture, independent of age. A virgin girl of five or of fifteen is a lesser thing, for this reason. Obviously at five, and perhaps even at fifteen there's scant she can do about it, but that doesn't change anything. A murderer similarly might not be able to do anything to fix his murders, but that doesn't improve his social standing either.

   We're talking of a very distant, strange society where a healthy woman refusing sexual congress is the height of bad taste, something fundamentally wrong with her. This because in actually civilised places the relative scarcity of the erect penis has meanwhile been discovered. More generally speaking, a lot of the avatars of Anglo thought have to do with either very little practice, very little understanding or very little study. This is deeply what being uncivilised means - you lot haven't yet had the time to figure out idiomatics, and are barely inching towards the early discoveries of sexuality as a social behaviour.

   I'd like to say that you've at least got all the time in the world, but sadly I do not think this the case. [↩]

3. Mamaie is a very specific word, it denotes in particular the woman's own mother (she hails from some shitty industrial townlet in the asshole of Romania) but more generally a poorly educated, peasant or proletarian woman, old enough for her children to have left. [↩]
4. "I se rupe", literally "his [?] breaks" is exactly the same sort of thing as "meri tu" above. It's the measure of all "couldn't care less"-es in Romanian, it references the penis (that's what goes in the [?]) and it may have something to do with a point in male evolution you wouldn't know anything about. Specifically - in males that haven't had most of their sensitive penis bits excised by a troglodyte tribe, there's a so called "thread" connecting the urinary meatus to the underskin of the cock. The first time a young man copulates vigorously enough, that breaks. It can be painful, it is usually bloody, it hinders nothing. So... i se rupe! [↩]
5. You probably know what a cocktease is : the woman (or more often young girl) that enjoys leading on, suggesting potentials, promising and so forth but then specifically not delivering on any of it. For the record, that behaviour is both normal and healthy, a lengthy discussion I won't bother with here.

   There is however a functional equivalent of the cocktease, which is the woman who is subjectively affraid of copulation. The difference is marked, the cocktease is a public servant, her efforts are centered on the other, even if not necessarily in exactly the manner that other would prefer. Nevertheless, she is a proper woman, dedicated to service. Meanwhile the unfortunate monstrosity discussed here is lost in her own angoisses, fears, terrors and anxieties. She would, perhaps, sometimes, teoretically want to fulfill her sexual function, but when push comes to shove it is not something she can actually do. So she goes around halfway suggesting how you know, some people thought she was having sex at some point har har, and so should you! Because she is!

   Needless to say - this is a diseased state of the mind, a sort of autism-for-women (they usually call it feminism, but it has as much to do with feminism as car crashes have to do with flight). Fortunately the incredibly complex mental sufferances it imposes on the afflicted are also very deeply ridiculous, which is our actual interest here. [↩]

6. This is outright impossible to translate.

   On one line, "ramii in [?] gol" generally would require the [?] to be the ass, and its intension is complete vulnerability.

   On another line, the stupi lead may connote either stupidity or a beehive (which, if it did, would reference queen bee behaviour, just, in an empty clay pot).

   So it's either she's gonna be left with a vulnerable bit exposed to public ridicule or rattling around in an empty thing she built for herself. [↩]

7. Not all names are created equal, at least not in Romanian. Veta is a very dismissive female name, roughly the equivalent of Dorel. There could be a whole phd invested in the research of this topic, as it's not even fixed, changes over time.

   Jeta is too complex to even go into, and vested means wilted. [↩]

8. Most Romanian women her age - around that fateful time when she's no longer interesting to men of her generation and her children have no further patience for her stupidity - stick tooth and nail to "their career", which usually is some sort of government employment. Which pays a pension, if they stick with it long enough. I would guess that about three quarters of the female population spends their mid 40s to mid 50s doing little more than waiting for that event. [↩]
9. Romanian immigration knew many phases. As the country finally joined the EU recently, the lowest of the low - that hadn't been able to go abroad before much like cattle's unable to go around until you open the gate - moved to picking strawberries and other low pay, low qualification agricultural jobs. [↩]
10. She had some article detailing how she'd only entertain whatever random Internet derps if they paid her a hefty sum of no less than e25! [↩]
11. She fancies herself some sort of entertainer or something, it's unclear. [↩]