"Если ты упал, то постарайся поднять что-то с пола, пока лежишь"

15:25 Oct 13, 2014 

... but not completely.

I marked my confidence level as medium because I wasn't sure the quote was really by Oswald Avery. Although the name is Scottish (I think), the man himself is Canadian, and there doesn't appear to be any links to Scotland.

But when I reverse translated the saying by leaving out the part about lying on the floor (it seemed like a Russian add-on) and then googled it, Oswald Avery's name came at the top.

09:03 Oct 10, 2014 

I might have worded my second point poorly. What I meant is, the Russian version has nothing folksy in it, and so there is no need to use folksy language in the translation. In addition, your use of "lay", albeit technically not incorrect, can be misleading to people unaware of such use.

13:40 Oct 8, 2014 

While I understand your indignation towards the comments by danya, The Misha and me, I would like to point out that they are not unsubstantiated:

1. Translating "упал" as "knocked down" is plain wrong, as such translation does not correctly convey the meaning of the proverb's idea.

2. I personally don't see how your ungrammatical use of the word lay "underscores the folksiness of the saying". Actually, from what I can tell, there is no "folksiness" in the saying.

3. If not obvious, it is quite apparent that the asker knows full well how to translate the phrase literally, as she is a native English speaker working in the Russian-English language pair. She asked specifically for the exact proverb used in Scotland, and you gave a literal translation. That leads me to thinking that you did not carefully read the question but rather skimmed through it.

I agree that keeping our discourse civilized is important, but what is more important, in my opinion, is being intellectually honest.

11:35 Oct 8, 2014 

It's funny how nevaeva, being 100% correct, put a lower level of confidence than the other two answerers with preposterous answers. There's a lesson to be learnt here.

18:35 Oct 7, 2014 

I can personally vouch that that is true.

18:30 Oct 7, 2014 

George Burns: "You know you're getting old when you stoop to tie your shoelaces and wonder what else you could do while you're down there." :)

15:40 Oct 7, 2014 

Are you sure it's not a joke?