taituroida

[Satish]

Reading the Helsingi Sanomat today, I came across this headline:

Burrows taituroi Vancouverille toisen finaalivoiton.

The best explanation I could find on the Internet for the verb taituroida was on kaannos.com which said:

taituroida = olla etevä, mestari jsskn
Based on this explanation, taituroida = to be talented or master in something.

However, this explanation does not explain two further examples I found on google:
1) Brittiläinen telinevoimistelija Elizabeth Tweddle taituroi EM-kultaa eritasonojapuilla lauantaina Berliinissä.
2) Tshekkimessias taituroi hattutempun.

In these examples, taituroida seems to be a transitive verb with EM-kulta and hattutemppu as objects.

For me taituroida + object = to get something with talent / masterly skill… Hmm.. Ironic test of my Finnish skills

[Vellamo]

Taituroida has to do with taitava, skilled in something. Someone skilled is taituri and tuhattaituri would be someone who is good at everything, "has a thousand skills".

So taituroida means to do something with skill, I'll leave the more grammatical stuff for someone else to comment.

[silk]

Burrows taituroi Vancouverille toisen finaalivoiton.

In this example finaalivoitto is the object. The sentence is no different than the other two sentences you gave.

One way to translate taituroida is "to master".

He mastered a skill, a win, a trick etc..

[Jukka Aho]

taituri = someone with considerable skill and ability to use it, a real virtuoso at something
taituroida (+ object) = to masterfully use that skill (in order to gain or win the object, usually to a successful end)

As a verb, taituroida, when applied to e.g. ice hockey, conjures up images of artful/skillful skating, unexpectedly successful dodging and swerving, masterful handling and control of the puck, scoring with very tricky/cheeky shots etc.

[Satish]

Hey thanks for all the help! It makes much more sense now.

By the way, in terms of EM-kulta being partitive in the sentence:

Brittiläinen telinevoimistelija Elizabeth Tweddle taituroi EM-kultaa eritasonojapuilla lauantaina Berliinissä.

Is it because the European championship gold medal is non-specific? If it was in the genitive, it would mean THE gold medal, ie. the one and only.

[Jukka Aho]

By the way, in terms of EM-kulta being partitive in the sentence:

Brittiläinen telinevoimistelija Elizabeth Tweddle taituroi EM-kultaa eritasonojapuilla lauantaina Berliinissä.

Is it because the European championship gold medal is non-specific? If it was in the genitive, it would mean THE gold medal, ie. the one and only.

The medal metals are typically in the partitive (thought as uncountables just like metals in general?):

Hän voitti mäkihypystä pronssia.
Sinä voitit miesten 50 kilometrin hiihdosta hopeaa.
On vaikea voittaa kultaa.

The medals themselves are considered normal objects:

Hän voitti mäkihypystä pronssimitalin.
Sinä voitit miesten 50 kilometrin hiihdosta hopeamitalin.
On vaikea voittaa kultamitali.

But you sometimes see the medal metals used as short for the medals themselves in which case they function as normal (countable) objects.

[AldenG]

After seeing this thread, I've had trouble coming up with ways to express taituroida voiton and other ways of using taituroida.

But most of all, I think we use "masterful," I think. This especially comes to mind when I try to recall the general feel of BBC America sports broadcasts.

So you'd say, for instance, that Burrows won a masterful finals victory for Vancouver.

Or it's pretty common to talk about "a masterful show/display of" some kind of skill. "In a masterful show of passing, blocking, feinting and scoring, Birmingham trounced Manchester in yesterdays finals." I could have said Miami and Dallas, of course, but it just wouldn't have the same Richard Quest resonance.

We've got verbs for domination but not so much for panache.

[Rob A.]

We've got verbs for domination but not so much for panache.

Heh...that reminds me of how Lord Kitchener...of Boer War fame ..was described in the book, "Goodbye Dolly Grey" by Rayne Kruger...

....Lord Kitchener....an "atavistic Anglo-Saxon"...

...no panache there...just blood and guts ...and "scorched earth"... He was able, through these tactics to, if not restore, at least recover, some honour for the British Army....

[Aside: The Boer War marked the "highwater mark" for the British Empire...and essentially was the "death knell" for the Victorian Age...]



....and, in his mid 60s, he enjoyed a suitably "Wagnerian" death....the ship he was on sank in very rough seas off the Orkneys or Shetlands...and he was reported as having stoically met his end...I don't know who would have reported this as I think all on board the ship were lost...??..

[AldenG]

Yet we can't quite say that he swashbuckled his way around the Empire, since it feels distinctly unmilitary. It is one of our relatively few verbs for doing things with manly panache, though. (Of course for unmanly panache, we have sashay... )

I suppose it's possible he might have engaged in masterful feats of swordplay at some point. But on second thought, I suppose that when the British Army used swords in the 1800's, the people they used them against generally didn't have swords of their own.

[Rob A.]

But on second thought, I suppose that when the British Army used swords in the 1800's, the people they used them against generally didn't have swords of their own.

Well...it wasn't always a "slamdunk" ....the Battle of Isandlwana against the Zulus was an absolute disaster....though, in the end, I guess for the Zulus, it was a case of winning an dramatic battle, but ultimately losing the war...

[AldenG]

More ways to translate taituroida in a competitive sports context:

Of course you can outplay another team.

You can beat the pants off another team.

Or there is something like this: Clemson ran circles around the Tarheels' defense on Friday, racking up a decisive win en route to the finals.

The specific idiom is running circles, but it can be modified:

It has been said that Finnish troops skied circles around their ill-prepared Soviet adversaries, many of whom were conscripts from more southerly regions.

The young pianist from Omaha has so far played circles around several older competitors in the the 2002 Tchaikovsky competition, making her the odds-on favorite for a first or second prize.

I think you'd assume there is some deliberate absurdity or incongruity in alluding to the running or dancing of circles around something when describing an activity where you sit in one place. But then again, it's remarkable what people will say with a straight face. The success of "significant other" (with a modified definition) outside academic circles and of a matter-of-fact "political correctness" in its modern incarnation both attest to this fact. Both of them were sardonic 30 years ago but few if any younger speakers are even aware of that today.

Running circles around something seems to me the closest so far to the spirit of taituroida. But it's still a bit apples to oranges, it seems to me.

[Rob A.]

Yet we can't quite say that he swashbuckled his way around the Empire, since it feels distinctly unmilitary. It is one of our relatively few verbs for doing things with manly panache, though. (Of course for unmanly panache, we have sashay...

So I wonder what would be a reasonable Finnish equivalent for these two words..??..:

"swashbuckler"....Eudict offers words like...kerskailija, tappelupukari...I don't think these two words capture the English sense, though...and wiktionary offers...seikkailija, hurjapäinen...these two look a little more promising??.... Also how would, "swashbuckle", be turned into a verb?

Probably the best example of a "swashbuckler", in modern English usage, would be seen in the movie, "Pirates of the Caribbean"....

And the word, "sashay"??.... I see this word comes from square dancing....and originally from the French word, chassé...much of square dancing terminology comes from French... No surprise, I guess...despite the "Americanness" of square dancing, it's origins are European....

So a Finnish word for "sashay" which, in a non-square dancing context suggests a less than...actually a much less than..."manly" way of moving around....