What does the Russian phrase ‘It smells of kerosene’ mean?
If a Russian says this phrase to you, it is quite possible that you will not smell any pungent odor!
Naya Arzuni, a student from Lebanon at the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia, once found herself in an unusual situation. She and her Russian friend were sitting in the dormitory drinking tea. Suddenly, Naya's neighbor walked into the room and, from her appearance, it was immediately clear that she was very angry about something. She looked angrily at the girls and then Naya's friend said: "Дело пахнет керосином, давай уйдем отсюда!" (“Delo pakhnet kerosinom, davai uidyem otsyuda!” or "The matter smells of kerosene, let's get out of here!").
Naya was very surprised, because she did not smell anything. But, it turned out that this is a metaphor, a winged expression, which means that a matter is taking an unexpectedly dangerous and unpleasant turn.
“This winged expression, like many others, has a specific author,” says philologist, professor at RUDN University Galina Trofimova.
In 1924, the then-famous journalist Mikhail Koltsov published a satirical article in the ‘Pradva’ newspaper with the ironic headline ‘Everything Is Fine’. It was about a major corruption scandal in the U.S. related to the development of oil fields.
“The Americans suspiciously sniffed the air. Something combustible was clearly wafting from the White House”, wrote Koltsov and called one of the large bribes “convincingly smelling of kerosene”.
Since that time, this phrase has entered the popular language.
In their speech, Russians quite abundantly use various metaphors and expressions that, when translated literally, seem like nonsense! To learn more about the meaning of such phrases, you can watch the ‘Favorite Russian’ program produced by the ‘Russky Mir' TV company.
