Many have heard the expression "Yes, he will not offend flies." Someone knows its meaning, and someone does not. But few people remember the story, so in order to enlighten the first and second, we wrote this article. Its main object is the history of phraseology “flies do not offend”.
Origin
If a person who knows the Russian language well, but does not go into the subtleties of the appearance of this or that expression, hears the phraseologism under consideration, then he will first think that the fly is a weak creature, and it does not cost anything to offend it.
But history (as well as the meaning that will be analyzed later) offers a slightly different interpretation.
In antiquity, as now, flies are rather obsessive and annoying creatures, in addition, quite harmful. Here is such a story of phraseology. “Do not offend flies” means to be a model of patience.
Ryazanov's famous film and phraseology
In the context of the topic, of course, we do not need the entire plot of the film "Office Romance", only a small piece of it.
All the spectators of this Soviet masterpiece remember the scandal that A.E. Novoseltsev L.P. Kalugina. As it turned out, this was a turning point in their relationship, for he broke the ice between the heroes. For impatient readers, we explain that, of course, we are very interested in the history of phraseology “not to offend flies,” but after we knew it, it would be nice to turn to the interpretation of the meaning of the expression. The Soviet film is suitable for these purposes as well as possible.
So, we continue. The next day L.P. Kalugina has already carefully studied the personal file of her hooligan employee. To clarify information about Anatoly Efremovich, the director of the institution called Verochka (she “knows everything about everyone”). Among other things, the secretary Kalugina said that A.E. Novoseltsev will not offend flies.
Of course, we don’t know if the history of phraseology “to not offend flies” was of interest to the stern boss, but we know for sure that she did not believe the words of her closest employee, who is aware of all the events at the enterprise.
The shades of the meaning of phraseology
Why Kalugina did not believe Verochka? Because the psychotype, which is implied by the phraseological unit we are studying, is completely different. Such a person, even if he is already tired to the extreme, will not act. In other words, A.E. Novoseltsev behaved in an atypical way, so Lyudmila Prokofievna was suspicious of Verochka's words.
But the only important thing is that the incident broke the ice between elderly and frustrated people, opening the way for them to happiness. And most importantly, their example helped us understand the meaning and meaning, and the reader became aware of the history of the origin of the phraseology “do not offend flies.”