My world was turned upside down recently when someone told me the word грубий (hrubi) meant crude. For all my childhood, the word meant fat. Online translators confirmed my error.
Was the entire Ukrainian diaspora using the word incorrectly?
I seems we diaspora Ukrainians are not alone. Our habits came from somewhere. I took great comfort in this reference to the arcane definition which seemed popular in my American Ukrainian community as a child:
Те саме можна сказати й про слова грубий — товстий. Мені більше подобається «груба книжка», а не товста. Чому? А тому, що так казали мої баби в Ромні й Недригайлові (цебто на Лівобережжі), та ще й досі так кажуть у народі навіть діти
Other diaspora peculiarities (I’ll use transliterations):
“koshykivka” instead of “basketball”
“kanapka” instead of “sandvich”
the arcane “lyshcheta” for skies instead of “lyji”
See also:
(my original post about the Ukrainian language)
(Ukrainian words from my diaspora childhood which haven’t quite worked in Ukraine)
