Mea culpa

A while ago, I blogged about Hillary Clinton’s inability to say the new Russian president's name. To avoid being a hypocrite, I think I'm duty-bound to tell this story.

One of the guys who comes to our Friday night small group works at the U.S. Embassy. When President Bush is in town next week, he will speak at a very early morning reception for the embassy workers. (They have to get there at 6 a.m.!) Zhenya is very excited about the opportunity, and wants to arrive as early as possible to get a good seat.

I was asking Zhenya what else Bush is doing on this trip, and he said that Bush also plans to visit Romania, Croatia and Russia, to meet with the president.

Now, a Russian language lesson: Medvedev means "of the bears." It's the "ev" at the end that makes it "of the bears," and not just "a bear."

So, as you may have guessed, I unfortunately replied to Zhenya, "Oh, will he be meeting with Putin, or with a bear?" Zhenya nicely replied, "Maybe both."