How much is owing for a fop-quality chicken?

Jason found this in Moscow's English language newspaper, The Moscow Times. I can't say I've ever heard my English language students say any of these, but then again, I teach them to speak English good.


This brief list -- culled from P. P. Litvinov's "Advanced English" and "Advanced Conversational English" by Vladimir Voytenok and Alexander Voytenko.

Sayings. Folk sayings, those neat phrases that summarize the wit and wisdom of an ethno-linguistic group, can be fun and revealing. Or not. "Advanced English" offers the following examples of English speakers' national lore:
"No news is a good news."
"Curiosity killed a cat."
"Nothing venture, nothing have."

While these might come under the heading native speakers may know as "close but no cigar," some other offerings from the same volume seem altogether baffling:
"The face is index of the mind."
"Custom is the second nature."
"One man is no man."

Making and greeting acquaintances. Gaining command of these functions is a critical part of acquiring any language -- and that is why it is important to resist the following models offered by "Advanced Conversational English":
"Hallo, I say!"
"You, sir, I address myself to."
"Old cock!"
"Edward: Good Lord! If it isn't George!"
"G. No other."
"E. Let me shake your crab."
"G. And let me do the same."

Grocery shopping. Another important function, and one with great potential for going awry if you use these illustrations:
"Isn't your milk adulterated?"
"It's tragically too expensive."
"You are simply robbing me."
"How much is owing for a fop-quality chicken?"

At a social occasion involving dancing. Everyone parties, but there is a certain lack of timeliness to these "conversational" dialogue phrases:
"This modern dancing is rather tricky at times. Oh, now I recognize it. It's a fox trot. Isn't it?"
"Oh, my foot. You have stepped on it."
"You must avoid jumping."
"Now, why do you hop, I wonder?"
"I wouldn't say that you are much of a dancer."
"She's too bulky to be guided."
"I towed her about the room, bumping into other couples, into the radiator, into the chairs and what not."

The mysterious "Anglo-Saxon soul." Believe it or not, English learners, I have never heard anyone make these "conversational" remarks:
"Your wanderings of desire have no single drive."
"I am astonished to discover what a bundle of motives you are."
"Your tongue is thickly furred."

And finally, a dialogue couplet that, I confess, I have very much wanted to use at large social events where it is difficult to keep everyone straight -- but somehow the occasion never presents itself:
"I couldn't catch his name."
"Doesn't that flame tell you anything?"