Why "they carry water to the offended" and what is written with a pitchfork on the water: The history of popular expressions from the past

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

In the modern world, the bulk of Russian folklore has sunk into oblivion, having remained for the most part only in books, films and scripts for the now popular thematic festivities. But there is also what remains in our life to this day. For example, fairy tales, lullabies, proverbs and sayings. The latter will be discussed in this article, because without them it is difficult to imagine our life. They are used both in oral speech and in writing, enrich and bring colors to our language, help to convey our thoughts to the interlocutor, and so on. Despite the fact that sayings are quite frequent guests in communication, not everyone knows the real meaning and history of these favorite and accustomed expressions.

Sayings as a storehouse of wisdom of the Russian people

Sayings and proverbs are laconic wise sayings that have deep meaning and help to realize many things. For example, what is good and what is bad, or what efforts are needed to complete the task. These sayings teach justice, good thoughts, convey the experience of generations, collected over more than one century. In general, they give what a person needs at a certain period of his life.

Basically, proverbs and sayings are instructive in nature, because they contain, one might say, a real way of life, created over the years, in which an understanding of life in general or its certain moments is laid. Since ancient times, they have helped people learn everything around, formulate their thoughts and absorb, like a sponge, important and valuable rules that can be useful in life. But not everyone is given this experience to adopt, since sometimes people do not realize what is the meaning of a particular proverb.

How proverbs and sayings appeared

Most of these expressions are oral folk art. And they appeared like this: someone successfully noticed or formulated his observation from life, someone liked it, and then it began to be transmitted from person to person. Basically, the expressions changed their original form over time, since not everyone could literally remember, or they supplemented or cut off the unnecessary, until the most successful option appeared, which became a stable expression.

Perhaps due to the fact that all these wisdom were not invented, but actually noticed from the lives of others or from personal experience, the proverbs became so accurate and varied. Many expressions have still not lost their relevance. It is worth noting that new sayings are being formed today. The truth is, basically, this is not folk art, but more wise quotes and expressions from films, books, publications, which then flow into a person's everyday life. They not only decorate the speech, but also act as arguments or examples in the discussion when solving any problems.

It is interesting that sayings and proverbs do not always retain their previous meaning. Until now, the thought embedded in old sayings can change exactly the opposite. When you begin to study the history of the appearance of a particular proverb, you understand that our ancestors put a completely different meaning. Some described traditions, others - situations and opinions about them, and so on. Over time, some words were cut off from the proverb, sometimes cutting it in half, and it happened that this even changed the meaning of this expression to the opposite.

The origin of famous sayings and proverbs

The expression "They carry water to the offended" appeared during the reign of Emperor Peter I. And the history of the creation of this proverb is connected with the fact that at that time the profession of a water carrier was in great demand. And especially active workers in this field, having decided to enrich themselves at the expense of citizens, began to raise the price of the provision of their services. The emperor, having learned about this, decided to punish the profiteering workers by issuing a decree - henceforth, instead of horses, to harness curmudgeonly water carriers in a cart with water. Naturally, it was impossible to disobey the tsar's decree.

In the proverb “You can't stick a piece back,” the piece itself represents a person, for example, a son, who began to live separately from his parents in his home, rarely visiting his relatives; a daughter who was married off to a distant place or moved into a house with her husband; a guy called up for military service, who has already shaved his head and so on. The word “chunk” itself arose due to the fact that in the old days bread was not cut, but broken off.

Phraseologism "Pitchfork on the water is written", according to one version, appeared due to Slavic mythology, according to which "pitchforks" are mythical creatures living in various reservoirs with the gift of predicting the fate of a person. But the second version is related to fortune-telling, its essence consisted in throwing stones into the water, which formed circles, pitchforks, according to the shape of which the future was predicted. Since these predictions very rarely came true, this expression began to mean some event or action that is unlikely to take place in the near future, and indeed in the future.

The proverb "Time is for business, but an hour for fun" appeared in Russia during the reign of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, although its first version was with a different union: "Time is for business and hour is fun." For the first time this expression was recorded in 1656 in the "Collection of rules for falconry", created by order of the king. Alexey Mikhailovich was very fond of this type of hunting, calling it fun. Moreover, the tsar wrote down this expression with his own hand, at the end of the preface, to remind that everything has its time, and more time for business, but one should not forget about fun.

Phrases such as "I got drunk in a dick", "I got drunk like a dick" and so on, oddly enough, but appeared from the light pen of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin. In his famous novel "Eugene Onegin" there is an excerpt that describes Zaretsky - Lensky's neighbor.

I fell off a Kalmyk horse, Like a drunken zyuzya, and to the French I was captured …

The poet came up with such a comparison thanks to his long stay in the Pskov region, where by "zyuzi" was meant nothing more than a pig. So these expressions are synonymous with "got drunk like a pig" or "got drunk to a pig squeal".

Many people know the saying "Orphan of Kazanskaya", but not everyone knows its history. And it appeared during the reign of Ivan the Terrible, when he conquered Kazan. Then the local nobility, in order to achieve the location and good nature of the king, tried to pass themselves off as unfortunate, poor and destitute. Since then, everyone who makes a mistake for the sake of profit is called an orphan of Kazan.

The expression "Get off the pantyliku" came to us from Attica, the southeastern region of Central Greece. The fact is that there is a mountain called Pantelik, where there were huge reserves of marble. Accordingly, due to the extraction of valuable rock, many grottoes, caves and labyrinths appeared there, in which it was easy to get lost.

When they say: "And there is a hole in the old woman," it means that someone has made an insulting and ridiculous mistake in some work. It emphasizes that absolutely anyone can make a mistake, despite experience and skill. By the way, in Russia, a job that was unsuccessfully performed was called a "hole", as a result of which all this led to sad consequences and results.

Many people think that our organ, the nose, is somehow involved in the expression “stay with the nose”, but this is not so. In this context, "nose" is an offering, a burden. This proverb describes a situation when a person brought a bribe to solve a problem, but his gift was not accepted or returned. Accordingly, the issue was not resolved, and the person did not give his offering or, in other words, was left with a nose.

The ancient saying "Pound water in a mortar" in our time means doing an unnecessary and useless thing. And it appeared in monasteries in the Middle Ages, when guilty monks were forced to pound water as a punishment.

Due to an error in translation from French, we got the expression "To be out of place." And all because in France they say “Etre dans son assiette”, which means “To be in an unenviable position”. But the word "assiete" in French also has a meaning that translates as "plate", and the unfortunate translator made a mistake. But who knows if this statement was so firmly entrenched in our lives, if not for this ridiculous translation.

With the expression "Good road" these days, people are usually kicked out in a fit of anger or quarrel. But in Russia, with such an expression, they saw off their relatives and loved ones on a long journey. Thus, they used to wish travelers an easy road, straight, without bumps and sharp turns. In general, so that the road is wide and smooth, like a tablecloth covered.

Nowadays, about a master or just a person with extensive experience in some area, they say: "In this case, the dog ate." But in the old days, the phrase sounded a little different and had a different meaning. They used to say the phrase “I ate the dog, but choked on the tail,” meaning that the person did some difficult task, but because of a trifle everything went down the drain.

The expression "Zlachnoe place" was used in Russia. As it is now, in those days, the places where they poured began to be called sinister. And this happened due to the fact that mostly intoxicating drinks, namely, kvass and beer, were made from cereals.

The statement "Filkin's gramota" is now quite often found in our speech. But where did this expression come from, and what does it mean? It appeared at the beginning of the 16th century, when Metropolitan Philip of Moscow, who disagreed with the cruel and bloody reforms of Ivan the Terrible, distributed letters directed against the sovereign. Upon learning of this, the king ordered Philip to be caught and imprisoned in a monastery, where he was later killed. From this case, it was customary to call a phony letter a worthless document or a fake.

Today, the expression "Show dust in your eyes" means to appear not who you really are, or to create an embellished, and maybe even a false impression about yourself or your abilities. However, in Russia, when this phrase appeared, the meaning was different. In the days of the prosperity of fist fights, fighters, insecure in their strength, behaved dishonestly towards their opponents, they really threw dust or sand into the eyes of their rivals, which they took with them to fight in small bags.