Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder
The Russians use one word-formation to say "I am a…
Hi, reader. I wrote this in 2003 and it's now more than five years old. So it may be very out of date; the world, and I, have changed a lot since I wrote it! I'm keeping this up for historical archive purposes, but the me of today may 100% disagree with what I said then. I rarely edit posts after publishing them, but if I do, I usually leave a note in italics to mark the edit and the reason. If this post is particularly offensive or breaches someone's privacy, please contact me.
The Russians use one word-formation to say "I am a boring person" and a different word-formation to say "External events are boring me." The same goes for expressing the two things we might mean by "I am cold."
I am wearing my coat because I am cold (the second meaning), but other people keep thinking that I am about to leave. The situation makes me feel liminal.