Kate, "an undergraduate student of linguistics somewhere in the American Midwest", has started a weblog entitled Chainik. She poses the question "Seriously, why the blog?" and answers "I got tired of talking to myself", which is the best short answer I've heard yet. Her inaugural post reveals the fact that "in the Midwest, at least, many people have heard" that "Russians have no word for 'fun'", and debunks the legend by providing not only the word itself but also several derivatives.
Posted by Mark Liberman at April 3, 2004 07:27 PM