Tender Insults

There is nothing like the tender, inoffensive insult to patch up strained relations (like those from the marital squabbles described in this space last time). Sure, a “tender insult” sounds like an oxymoron, but only on the surface. Thus, the hero of Eldar Ryazanov’s film Forgotten Melody for a Flute (actor Leonid Filatov), after quarrelling with his date in a car, hugs her and says: “Дурында, ты моя!” And she melts and, well, surrenders.

An internet dictionary gives the following definition: Дурында – ласковое, не обидное обращение к девушке (tender, inoffensive way to address a girl). A synonym is дурёха. Both come from the insulting word “дура” (fool, silly person) and are formed through suffixation. The same Leonid Filatov (also a talented poet) used the word дурында in his poetic, humorous fairytale for the theater, Про Федота-стрельца (About Fedot the Archer):

Вот ответь мне – слов не трать!
Где царевне мужа брать?
Чай, сама, дурында, видишь –
Женихов у ей не рать