Ordinals

We're watching "Citizen X," which is set in Soviet Russia in 1982. The leads are Stephen Rea and Donald Sutherland. They are captivating from the start. The story involves a serial killer in Russia (not that there would be such a thing -- that is a decadent American activity).

Rea and Sutherland adopt Russian accents but they speak English. As I listen, the language seems almost a revelation. "She rides the trains," a victim's mother said. "For fun?" Rea asks. And I think about the concept "for fun" and how language expresses ideas.

So it is English but I am hearing it with new ears on occasion. Such as when a supervisor accosts an employee and says, "You ****ed up. For the how-manyeth time?" That made me laugh. I haven't heard a word like that in ages.