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Ну и денек выдался в минувшую субботу!

I'm assuming it literally means "my/our little day stood out from others. It was special somehow", but its precise meaning eludes me.

It's been an eventful day. [in a positive sense]

or: It's been a rough day. [with a negative connotation of struggling]

or: It's been a long day. [feeling as if several days have passed in a single day]

On a side note: Is it just as acceptable to say "день выдался"?

Community
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Con-gras-tue-les-chiens
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  • "день выдался" - would sound quite weird and ambiguous. However for positive estimation there can be "День удался" (after the day or towards an evening" or "день задался" in the morning or noon, within the very heart of the day. – Arioch Apr 08 '18 at 13:50

3 Answers3

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It's either outright negative or bitter-sweet but in the latter case the phrase refers to the bitter part.

The diminutive form is meant to show that either there was some positive aspect or that you're not too upset or angry about the day having been shitty.

It's totally acceptable to not use the diminutive form of день however in this case the phrase most likely expresses negative attitude towards the experience.

Баян Купи-ка
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  • Excellent! By the way, I'm wondering what is the function of the phrase "Ну и" at the start of conversation. I assume these two words are not to be interpreted separately. – Con-gras-tue-les-chiens Apr 08 '18 at 13:32
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    compare with "Ну и ну". It stresses how outstanding, confusing, puzzling something was. One may say specifically "Хороший денёк выдался", "плохой выдался день", "дождливая выдалась неделя", etc. "Ну и" just stresses the day was outstanding, without saying details, which are supposedly either obvious or hard to explain in brief. I agree that unspecific "ну и день" is more often with negative connotations, a day that surprised you in some bitter way. Maybe a nervous day, or exhausting, something. – Arioch Apr 08 '18 at 13:48
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    @Alone-zee ну и is an emphatic compound interjection in exclamations expressing negative emotions or attitude, it functions as the English what a...; such a...; so... but only in a negative context, e.g. ну и погодка сегодня! - what a terrible weather we have today; ну и дурак же ты!/ну ты и дурак! - you're such a fool!; ну ты и загнул!/ну и загнул же ты! - you're so exaggerating!; ну и видок у тебя, Шарапов! - you have such a terrible look, Sharapov! – Баян Купи-ка Apr 08 '18 at 17:17
  • Hi. Could it be that this "и" is a particle for emphasis that often precedes a verb? Or should I consider it to be something slightly different? https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%B8#Russian – Con-gras-tue-les-chiens Apr 09 '18 at 05:49
  • @Alone-zee i doubt that as the emphatic ну и goes not only with verbs and rather to a lesser extent with verbs, and it doesn't follow some previous statement for confirmation or reinforcement, it is perfectly autonomous and self-contained – Баян Купи-ка Apr 09 '18 at 07:02
  • @Alone-zee check these examples of usage with a verb: 1. ну ты и пишешь! (a comment about quality of handwriting) - you have such an awful handwriting (characters are either too small, illegible, ugly, don't meet some arbitrary requirements or something else etc) VERSUS in a dialogue 2. А. - Зачем я это пишу? В. - Тебе сказали писать? А. - Да. В. - Ну / Вот / Ну вот ты и пишешь. Note that in the second example the phrase doesn't end with exclamation mark, it would be inappropriate here because it's not an exclamation. – Баян Купи-ка Apr 09 '18 at 08:11
  • @Alone-zee and they're also pronounced with different intonation – Баян Купи-ка Apr 09 '18 at 11:17
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A rough day is the closest equivalent.

"Денек выдался" must be:

  • Stressful
  • Somewhat unexpected (if you went to the dentist to have a root canal, that doesn't count, but if you went to the dentist for a check up and ended up having a root canal, that's the thing)
  • Not tragically bad. Either day's efforts may have somehow improved the outcome, or the day was a string of essentially small mishaps (if your flight got cancelled and you just went home, that doesn't count, but if you spent a day at the airport, finally getting on another flight, that's the thing)
Alexander
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If it's денёк, it's very likely something negative is implied (but it can also be something funny, unusual).

Compare: The happiest day in my life - Самый счастливый день в моей жизни (денёк is not used here, cos it's an important day).

You can't say it's LONG (length of the day is irrelevant here, it just means the day is unusual for some reason)

I'm not sure there's a source which proscribes the use of Ну и ДЕНЬ выдался в минувшую субботу! - it sounds OK, but not so emphatic, i.e. день could be just as well used in a neutral situation. Ну и денёк is very emphatic.

alexsms
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