Comment by lb1lf
5 years ago
-A former girlfriend is of a Russian emigré family; she always got a chuckle out of Norwegians' inability to understand the concept of inflection.
Her father as a matter of course got letters from all her leisure activities, school &c addressed to 'Mr. Yuri ----skaia'. - as her last name was ----skaia, obviously his would be, too.
At least for us inflectionally challenged Norwegians.
Reminds me of Nabokov complaining about the incompetent translators of Russian novels → English writing Mr. Karenina.
It wasn't "Mr. Karenina" (I've never seen anyone use that form) he took issue with; he believed that the name should be translated as Anna Karenin rather than the usual Karenina, since English does not inflect surnames.
Basically the same as "Miss John Doe".