Mikhail Lomonosov wrote that the "bliss" (happiness) of the human race strongly depends on the word. The word allows people to:
Build castles, build temples and ships, take up arms against the enemy
Words, like people, are born, live, grow old, die. Over time, they can change meaning, be reborn. Known to us as an insult, the word "creature" has evolved over the course of its existence. The meaning of the word "creature" has changed.
Interpretation in different dictionaries
Dal's explanatory dictionary in this case gives a reference to the verb "to create" - to create, to create, to give life. The newer dictionaries of Ozhegov and Ushakov give two absolutely opposite meanings of this word. According to them, a creature is:
- a living being created by God;
- an unworthy, despised, vile person.
Why are there such different, mutually exclusive meanings?
History of the word
The word "creature" is associated with religious philosophy. The world was created by God. He is the demiurge, the creator. Everything he has created is God's creatures. In the Church Slavonic dictionary, this word means: the world, the entire human race, creation. It is found in the Bible innominative case 11 times. Initially, the "creatures" were people, animals, and the surrounding nature. In the following, the word refers only to animals. Perhaps then it acquired an offensive meaning. When wild instincts wake up in a person, he behaves vilely, not in a Christian way, then he is like an animal - a creature. It highlights the negative meaning. In disputes and quarrels, it sounds like a curse. In this case, "creature" is an insult. But this is too straightforward an interpretation.
Noah's Ark
“A pair of every creature,” we say when we want to jokingly emphasize the diversity of something, the mixing of objects. This phraseological unit arose from the legend of Noah's ark. Righteous Noah, in order to save himself from the flood, built an ark and took with him his family and many pairs of different animals. Seven pairs of animals were intended for sacrifice. The theme of Noah's Ark was popular in the 17th and 18th centuries in the performance of puppet booths. Toys were sold with a different set of animals from the ark. In the 19th century in Russia, such toys were made in Sergiev Posad. V. Mayakovsky in the comedy "Mystery-Buff" plays with the themes of hell, paradise, flood. He placed "seven clean pairs" and "seven unclean pairs" in a fictitious ark. The seven impure pairs are workers who can destroy heaven and hell and create a new, just society.
In 1956, the performance "Noah's Ark" was staged at the Obraztsov Moscow Puppet Theater. It was a sharp satire on the existing social system.
Literature
The use of the word "creature" in literature lendsnarrative with different emotional overtones. These are “millions of two-legged creatures” by Pushkin, “a trembling creature” by Dostoevsky, “a tribe of various creatures” by Krylov. Also calls himself Dmitry Karamazov, talking with Alyosha. In each context, the word "creature" carries a special semantic load. It can be slight neglect, and disgust, and an insult.
Cinema
The word "creature" is a vile, dangerous, mysterious creature. "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" - this is how the title of the 2016 film sounds in Russian translation. The translators increased the emphasis, thus translating the word beast (animals) in the original name. A mugglezoologist from the world of Hogwarts travels the world of humans to keep them safe from magical creatures and vice versa.
In the 2004 film "The Creature", scientists created a unique super-being from a space meteorite, an ideal weapon that can destroy everything around and feeds on human blood. To fight him, a squad is created that tries to destroy him.
Fans of original games and puzzles can take part in the Creature quest. His scenario is as follows: a group of diggers disappeared in the Moscow dungeons. It is necessary to save them, but those who went to the rescue are being pursued by a terrible invisible creature, a creature that has settled in the Moscow tunnels.
There are many different uses of this word. There are stable expressions “a wordless creature”, “a spineless creature”. They came from the medievalscientists who study the animal world. They believed that a creature is any living being. Initially, these expressions referred to fish and insects. Now we are talking about a weak-willed and weak person.
