In today’s broadcast of the NPR program, “Marketplace Morning Report,” the host David Brancaccio (a native English speaker with exemplary vocal timbre, diction, and stylistic acumen), used the phrase “like a thief in the night,” with the contemporary meaning ‘secretly or unexpectedly and without being seen’, which anyone with a smattering of biblical knowledge would recognize as coming from the New Testament. The exact locus is 1 Thessalonians 5, to wit: “For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.” In all English versions of this passage, including the King James, the relevant phrase is in perfectly contemporary language.
By contrast, the contemporary Russian phrase maintains an archaic (Church Slavonic) wording throughout: “яко (or как) тать в нощи» (transliterated: “iako tat’ v noshchi”). The meaning and usage remain the same as in English, but stylistically the force of the phrase has gravitas because of the archaisms, which the English lacks. Any Russian speaker uttering the phrase will automatically associate it with something ancient––hence, weightier––than will an English speaker using the same idiom, irrespective of any knowledge of the phrase’s origin.
MICHAEL SHAPIRO
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