From a native Russian speaker (who emigrated to America in his teens):
To be precise, the Russian word снять, which is here translated as "get rid of" usually means "to remove from position" and not "to murder in a dark alley by means of a dagger to the liver."
Doesn't change that the whole exchange is bonkers, but we MUST be precise. https://t.co/N7ZxkGLBqL— Slava Malamud (@SlavaMalamud) January 15, 2020
Not only does he omit all punctuation and use the completely wrong form of the pronoun "me," he can't even spell Lutsenko's first or last name properly.
This is the Russian of someone who really hasn't used it in a long time and who was never well educated to begin with.— Slava Malamud (@SlavaMalamud) January 15, 2020
However, ONCE AGAIN, in the last text, it is not correct to translate "никуда не денется" as "she is not getting away." The actual meaning is "her time will come" and it obviously refers to the word "снять", which, again, does not mean "murder."
I am annoyed by this translation.— Slava Malamud (@SlavaMalamud) January 15, 2020
It's a crazy exchange, providing the circumstances and the characters involved, but I can't imagine any Russian who would read this word and think murder or kidnapping.
— Slava Malamud (@SlavaMalamud) January 15, 2020
Sounds a lot like a Michael Cohen analog, actually — talk like a made man, act like a cheap shyster offering payoffs funded by a second mortgage.
Murderous Douchebags Open Thread: A Note on TranslationPost + Comments (112)