It sometimes happens that you have to look in the head for the meaning of an expression. But he sank into the water! What do you mean has sunk? Why into the water? And is it not the water of Leta - the legendary river of oblivion in the kingdom of the dead?
And it is supposed to approach it with the thought: what remains to the descendants?
You can only sink in the past
The obsolete word "kanut" has the meanings in Russian:
- fall in the form of a drop, that is, simply drip;
- disappear without a trace, abyss.
It should be noted that this archaism is used only in perfect form. There is no word that would call this lasting action. In addition, the verb is used, mainly in 3 persons. You cannot say about yourself / us (kanay / kanay) and about you / you (kanat / kanay).
If you can’t, you won’t leave a trace
Suppose everything is clear with a drip: a tear dripped into water, milk dripped into kinka, blood dripped onto the ground. In this case, no misunderstandings arise.
But why if you get lost, then certainly in the water? And what does it mean, "how it sank into the water"?
Or maybe just because a single drop completely dissolves in the total volume of the liquid, merges with it so that it can no longer be isolated in its original form. So someone irretrievably disappeared and something that could not be found.
No wonder in this case they often use the verb and evaporated. Here, too, we are talking about a liquid that has ceased to be such, which is already no longer as it were.
Examples of use:
- His beloved sank into the water - neither to his ears, nor to his spirit.
- Everywhere I’m looking for my passport, but he sank into the water.
Similar expressions:
- only they saw him;
- and was such;
- remember your name;
- and the trace caught a cold;
- as if through the earth failed;
- how the wind blew.
We are only drops in the river of oblivion
Equally widespread is the expression "sunk into oblivion." Its meaning: to be permanently erased from human memory, to retreat into the region of half-forgotten traditions, to be completely lost.
And here, too, appears water. After all, Summer is a river of oblivion in the underground kingdom of the dead - Aide, in the mythology of Ancient Greece. When a mortal who has completed his earthly journey arrives on this shore, he drinks water from Leta and forgets the past.
Summer (or the Oblivion River) is the hallmark of the kingdom of death. That is, the dead are those who have lost their memory.
How to leave a good legacy?
The Russian language is rich in beautiful and precise expressions. In an age when they are increasingly being supplanted by foreign borrowings, professional words and jargon, it is not out of place to regularly refresh them in memory and periodically use them in speech.
Otherwise, the meaning of them will sink into oblivion. And that means that descendants will be cruelly deprived of something unconditionally valuable - in their native language.