Phraseological turns make our speech more interesting. Any, the most ordinary conversation can be a great example of the richness of our language. We will talk about one of the most popular phraseological units in our article.
How often do we get together to wash our bones with common friends? Such topics are considered bad form. But at least by chance we are doing this. Briefly, the meaning of phraseology can be conveyed as "discussion behind the back of a person." Without going into the moral side of the process now, we consider the expression from a philological point of view.
So, further in our article we will try to tell what it means to “wash the bones”, and also consider some moments in the history of this phraseological unit.
The modern meaning of expression
Since phraseologism has an indirect meaning, at least at the current stage of its use, we are interested in just that.
So, the main meanings of "washing the bones" at the present stage are "discussion behind the back, gossip." An extremely negative expression is "slander." In general, it is always - either to discuss the character traits of a person without his presence, or his specific actions.
We also note that in general contemporary negative meaning has a negative emotional connotation. Sometimes there are exceptions when the discussion of a person behind his back takes place on the positive side.
The origin of phraseology
Like many other persistent expressions, "wash the bones" has its own very interesting history of origin. To begin with, this combination in itself sounds very ominous. So where did this expression come from?
The history of phraseologism begins in ancient times, the sphere of education is the Orthodox Greek ritual culture, which has transferred to some extent to the Slavic. The expression is associated with the following eerie burial ritual.
So, according to ancient traditions, there was a secondary burial. This ritual provided for actions when the bones of a deceased person were taken out of the grave, washed with water and wine, and then laid back into the grave. From here we have the direct meaning of the expression "to wash the bones." Phraseologism, now existing with a specific meaning, has come into use through direct meaning.
The question remains open for what purpose the ritual was carried out. Open sources provide such an explanation.
Bones were washed in order to ensure that no curse was imposed on the body. Damned dead people come out of graves at night (vampires, ghouls, ghouls) and destroy people, taking their blood to the last drop. Such bodies in the graves lie undeveloped, only swollen and darkened.
Mentioned expression in written sources
Researchers of traditional folk art did not divert attention from phraseological units and did not miss the opportunity to fix them in their writings. However, the expression "wash the bones" (the meaning of phraseology and its origin) was not mentioned in the scientific literature up to the dictionary created by Dahl.
But already in Dahl’s work, an interpretation of the expression and a historical reference to its origin are given.
References in literary texts
Although the topic of our discussions began to rise rather late in scientific research, the art of the word was one step ahead. In fiction, texts contain this expression, and it is quite common.
In the works of Russian literature since the 19th century, we meet him in various contexts. On the basis of this, researchers suggest that it was at that time that phraseological unit fell into the literary layer of the Russian language from colloquial speech.
Among the writers who have this expression in their works, Saltykov-Shchedrin (his "Provincial Essays"), Melnikov-Pechersky with his novel "On the Mountains", "Grandma's Tales". Chekhov also decorated his stories with a folk expression (for example, “From notes of a hot-tempered person”).
Expression Variants
Phraseological units, like words of a language, have their own synonyms, are used in various forms. The latter may be of varying degrees of similarity with "wash the bones." The meaning of phraseologism at the present stage we have analyzed above, everything happened historically the same.
So, in the written sources of the literary Russian language of the 19th century there are three options that differ slightly in morphological form. The meaning remains the same, but the verbs have different prefixes. The original word is the infinitive verb "wash." With prefixes, it forms such options: “wash” (in fact, we consider it in our article as the most common), “rinse” (met much less often, today you don’t even hear it at all), “wash” (today it’s also unlikely hear).
In one of Chekhov’s works (the story “Zinochka”), we observe yet another form similar to “washing the bones”, but derived from another root: “sorting out”. It is considered a secondary, most likely, purely authorial decision on a par with copyright neologisms.
Synonyms of expression
There are not so many synonyms in phraseologism "to wash the bones", modern and those that are found only in fiction and scientific literature. An interesting fact: the academic dictionary gives the expression "shake the bones" (meaning "gossip") as synonymous, however, according to reports, literary texts of the 19th and 20th centuries do not contain such a form.
Another, more understandable example with synonyms of the phraseologism under consideration, based on the expression "disassemble by bones". It is almost purely literary, because there is no information that in this form was used in folk speech. This phrase arose clearly under the influence of "rinsing (sorting out) the bones." The meanings converge in some cases or are similar in the rest: “discuss something or someone in detail,” “subject to detailed analysis, criticism,” and also “condemn, criticize.”
In the famous “Crime and Punishment” Dostoevsky also used an excellent form of expression: “knead with bones”, which means “washing the bones”. The essence is the same, only the imagery is partially changed.
On the same line with the phraseology “to wash the bones” is placed another - “to sort by string”. Their meaning converges, but the imagery is different.
conclusions
So, in our article we tried to comprehensively and most interestingly highlight what it means to “wash the bones”. The main thing that we were going to extract from the discussion was its meaning: "to discuss, gossip about a person in his absence."
The historical development of the meaning of this expression has gone through many stages. Initially, it was literal and reflected ritual action, then it went on to analyze the character of a person. Today we have a familiar context and meaning, which we put into it on an intuitive level.