Lost in Translation

We should have, hopefully, some native speakers somewhere around the CIA, one would think.

A carefully orchestrated, closely-watched meeting here between Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and her Russian counterpart began awkwardly Friday night with a linguistic miscue that had diplomats wincing.

At a dinner with Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, in a luxury hotel overlooking Geneva, Mrs. Clinton presented him with a gift — a red plastic button labeled with the word “reset” and the Russian word “Peregruzka.”

The button was a play on Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s call in Munich last month for the two countries to reset their relationship. “We worked hard to get the right Russian word,” Mrs. Clinton said to Mr. Lavrov, as he gazed at the button. “Do you think we got it?”

“You got it wrong,” he replied, explaining that the Americans had come up with the Russian word for “overcharged.”

“We won’t let you do that to us,” she said quickly, with a hearty laugh.

Actually, the retort from Hillary is probably the only thing she did right, since an apology to the Russian would have likely just been seen as an explicit admission that Amricans are idiots. Her reply, though, is like waving the air and looking angrily, but falsely, at the person behind you when you fart in line at the grocery.

ёб твою мать !

(My apologies for those who understand Russian, although if you understand that phrase, then you likely understand the nuance behind it and see it as appropriate to the article)