How much speech means to us… Our language is not a physical organ, but nevertheless an inanimate part of our body, without which it would be very difficult for us to live, almost like without a soul. We use words to express our feelings and teach children, communicate with neighbors and travel the world. We and language are inseparable things.
Backstory
The formation of the language involved not just many people, but many generations, making changes and correcting speech according to the situation and the events taking place around them. We can safely say that everyone has a story - without exception - words. The influence of those peoples who were close to the Russian-speaking population on his speech is enormous. Society lived, actively cooperating. Trade and art, science and war contributed to this. Everything that humanity has lived for hundreds of thousands of years is reflected in our language. Passed on to us by our ancestors through language, layers of information lie in banal words familiar from childhood.
Question
Oneof which "mattress". Or "mattress"? How to write this word correctly? A couple of decades ago, no one would have had any doubts, the school had strict rules for writing this word. Now everything is easier. Or harder?
You can't tell right away. The abolition of strict rules, in theory, should make the language easier, but there it was. Not everyone knows how to write a banal, at first glance, word. There are more and more people who doubt their own knowledge. So which is correct: "mattress" or "mattress"?
Answer
The answer is obscenely banal. Right and so and so. Write how you want. This is how the new rules of the Russian language interpret grammar. Agree, a somewhat vague statement for us. From school we are used to the fact that each word has a clear spelling and there should not be any improvisations.
It is this nuance that has created so many difficulties for foreigners trying to learn our language. Not the ratio of pronunciation and spelling introduces many into a stupor. Vocabulary words that need to be learned in hundreds fill the brain with information that is difficult for a foreigner not to get confused.
History
But back to the question posed earlier: how do you spell "mattress" or "mattress"? What letter to put at the end of the word denoting a soft bedding for a bed? Maybe context has something to do with it? Why in our written speech it became possible to write the word in two versions, we will answer later, and now a short digression into the history of the word that appearedin our speech relatively recently (from a historical point of view).
Peter I
Paradoxical as it may seem, but the most famous Russian innovator could not have done here. Peter I, who changed the country, forced to shave beards, demanded that the decoration of the bedrooms be changed. So, along with European fashion, interior design entered our lives. Prior to that, in Russia it was customary to sleep on the floor (wooden bench). No feather mattresses or wadded mattresses were used until the time of Peter the Great. Everything was simple and concise. In fairness, it must be said that even after the innovations of Peter, this bedding attribute did not enter every home. Ordinary peasants continued to spend the night on benches and stoves until the 20th century. This subject has become obligatory for people from the upper class. They filled it most often with swan's down, and it was very expensive. A mattress or mattress, in this context not so essential, was considered a must-have item included in the dowry kit of any we althy bride.
Dutch period
It is easy to guess that Peter borrowed this word, as well as the subject itself, from the Dutch, more precisely, from the Netherlands, where he was trained in shipbuilding. He lived there long enough to appreciate all the charm of soft bedding containing bast (linden bark), hair or wool. They could also contain straw or hay in their bowels. In general, it was something that was placed on the bed for sleeping. Another term actively used in relation to this subject was the word "mattress". In Russianlanguage, he had another meaning that had nothing to do with sleep and comfort. So they designated one of the types of firearms. It seems that for this reason the word was not assigned to bedding, giving way to a word of foreign origin.
In the language of the people of the Netherlands, the word is written as matras. It is from this word that our “mattress” came about. This type of borrowing is called transliteration, when the word is introduced into the language in the form of a term rewritten in Russian letters. That is, due to the fact that at the end of the Dutch (Dutch) word there is a letter “s”, it is also in our word “mattress”.
German Period
From the above, we can conclude that it is correct to write a mattress. Or is a mattress also appropriate? After all, it was with “c” at the end that Dahl introduced this word into his dictionary. Why? The answer is right there in history. And to be completely accurate, then in a huge number of Germans who came to our country after Peter I "cut through" a window to Europe. Naturally, a tremendous influence was exerted on the language, and there was an adjustment to what was introduced earlier. The fact is that German and Dutch have the same base, namely, they are the languages of the West Germanic group, the South Germanic subgroup. The difference, in principle, is insignificant, most often due to the dialect. It is said a little rudely, more precisely, too extensively, but the principle is true. The proof of this is the word "mattress". Or a "mattress", whatever you like. In German, it is written as Matratze. It is clear that there is a differenceonly at the end. In the German version, tze is nothing more than "ts" in Russian. In this case, linguists used a slightly different type of translation, namely transcriptional. Or, as it is also called, phonetic. That is, the Germans, pronouncing the Dutch word "mattress" in their own way, put the letter "c" at the end, not "s".
This inconsistency misled those who once compiled dictionaries and systematized information about the Russian language. So in different dictionaries, both forms of writing this word appeared. Therefore, it makes no difference what you cover with sheets at home - a mattress or a mattress. Spelling allows you to use both forms in speech. All for our convenience.
