I got into an awkward position, made a mistake in the calculations, disgraced myself in front of the employees … As always, I let everyone down. I miscalculated and messed up. Missed, and nothing can be changed. Ruined everything in the world. How many situations! And you can say in another way - sat in a puddle.
Phraseologisms
In many languages there are independent language units, consisting of several words and denoting something single in meaning. In the vocabulary of the Russian language, they are called phraseological units. Such phrases are able to accurately and figuratively convey a thought, characterizing and evaluating the events of reality. The meaning of such a phrase is not conveyed by the words included in it. Therefore, they are difficult to translate and understand for native speakers of another language.
Examples of phraseological units:
- "make an elephant out of a fly" - give something an exaggerated value;
- "hang your ears" - get carried away by someone's stories;
- "go down the drain" - to be left with nothing, go bankrupt.
Phraseologisms-synonyms
Phraseologisms-synonyms are combinations of words that carry almost the same meaning, butdiffering from each other in images, style, shades. For example:
- to indicate the same signs of something, you can say: "one world is smeared", "two boots of steam", "one field of berries";
- to reinforce the meaning of the word "a lot", they use: "darkness, darkness", "at least a dime a dozen", "like uncut dogs".
It is worth dwelling on the consideration of synonyms used to put a person in an awkward position. This is a couple - "sit in a puddle" ("sit in a galosh") and "hit your face in the dirt." In a figurative sense, on the moral sphere of human life, dirt is used in the meaning - shame, fall, loss of a good name, and so on. A puddle is a wet, dirty place, the same dirt.
Both phraseological units reflect situations of falling into a shameful position. But there is a slight difference. Hitting the face in the dirt is a shame, sitting in a puddle is a comic shame. It is interesting that in the dictionary of the Russian language V. I. Dahl, prepared by himself, is only the first expression, because until the beginning of the 20th century the expression "to sit in a puddle" was considered unliterary, obscene. And it was used among the uneducated segments of the population.
Yuliya Borisovna Kamchatnova, an independent researcher, says: "At the same time, every native speaker of Russian knows that it's just shameful to lose face - it's just shameful, and to sit in a puddle is shameful, at the same time funny and ridiculous. Therefore, in the interpretation by dictionaries of the meaning of bothexpressions there can be no doubt: the shame is not comic in one case and the shame is comic - in the other."
Why do they sit in a puddle?
Don't fall, don't sink, don't hit, namely sit down? This verb implies a certain place on which a person can sit … And what will be soiled as a result of such sitting? Some people find this comical.
Perhaps the origin of the aphorism is due to the fact that a person in front of witnesses himself created a puddle, dirt. Evidence of this is the soiled ass. This can happen if you experience a strong sense of fear. The people have a lot of verbs for such cases: crap, do it, put it in your pants. Some may find this funny.
Maybe that's why Dahl doesn't mention "sit in a puddle" in his dictionary. He created it for family reading, to get acquainted with the beauty and richness of his native language. There is no "sit in a galosh" in his edition, although the word galosh itself is present.
