Russian: Putin/Rasputin (was: Two things completely OT and one thing ON)

[John Walton]

Catlady said:

> 2. Tim says that Putin and Rasputin are pronounced differently and might
> be spelled differently in Cyrillic. I had thought they were pronounced
> the same and made a joke (well, it was funny at the party) about them
> being related. Does anyone know?

Hi Rita,

>From my limited year of Russian, I'm pretty sure that they are spelt
differently: POO-tin and ras-PYOO-tin -- it's either the letter shaped like
a "y" (oo) or the letter shaped like a "I-O" (yoo).

Of course, if you pronounce "Putin" in French, you get the word for "whore".
:D Betcha didn't know that.

--John, Model of a Modern P-I-T-A...