Our contemporary, Russian writer Oleg Roy, has an aphorism: "Even eyes need to be built for a reason, but with glitter in them, without blue bags under them and with a charming smile a little lower than them." Great phrase, isn't it? But today we are not talking about this, but about the set expression “make eyes”.
"Vitamins" for speech
Illness is an unpleasant thing, and everyone is subject to it. Our speech is no exception. She also gets sick sometimes. After all, she is not a soulless creature, and her vocation is not only the transfer of dry information. No, she wants to penetrate deep, get to the very essence, inspire, excite, in other words - live a full, vibrant life. So how can you help her avoid suffering? There is a way out - the daily use of "vitamins", which are phraseological units - figurative expressions. Lively, piercing, they not only decorate our speech, but also express the attitude, emotions, feelings of the speaker to what is happening. The phraseological unit “make eyes” is one of such “usefultablets." Why?
Phraseology
Not every phrase can be classified as a phraseological unit. The latter has a number of features that distinguish it from ordinary everyday phrases. Firstly, it is a stable holistic combination of two or more lexemes (“make eyes” cannot be remade and say “make sponges”). Secondly, it has a single meaning, which is in no way related to the value of each component included in it. For example, "headlong" means one thing - quickly, which, in turn, in no way correlates with the meanings of the words "breaking" and "head".
Based on the foregoing, it becomes clear why in order to understand this linguistic phenomenon, it was necessary to create a special, rather voluminous direction in linguistics - phraseology. There is no end to the work here. This is the creation of various classifications, and the study of methods of education, and the study of sources of origin. We propose to consider the stable expression "make eyes" according to these points.
Origin
First of all, one question torments me - where did the phraseological unit come from? Who breathed life into a couple of faceless words? Phraseological units are different. In Russian, they are divided into native Russian and borrowed. The first were born from old fairy tales, epics, songs, legends, chronicles. They are true reflectors of the difficult history of the people, its culture, ancient customs and traditions. Aphorisms, priceless finds of Russian writers, also belong to this group. For example, "beat the buckets",“milk rivers, jelly banks”, “neither fluff nor feather”, “the past is overgrown”, “set a bath”, “give birch porridge”, etc.
The origin of the phraseologism "make eyes" - how to deal with this task? It just belongs to the second group - borrowed, as it came to us from the French language. According to the scientific work of the linguist Shansky N. M. “The experience of the etymological analysis of Russian phraseological units”, this figurative expression is a tracing paper, that is, a literal translation from the French language faire des yeux doux - “make sweet eyes.”
What does "make eyes" mean?
For the meaning of a phraseological unit, as well as for understanding what this or that word means, one should refer to explanatory dictionaries. Thankfully there are a lot of them. These are the “Big Phraseological Dictionary of the Russian Language” edited by V. N. Telia, and the “Concise Etymological Dictionary of Russian Phraseology” edited by N. M. Shansky, and “Russian Phraseology. Historical and etymological dictionary Birikha A. K. And many others.
What do all of the above sources say about the expression "eyeball"? The meaning of the phraseological unit is as follows: to flirt, flirt, flirt, openly show your sympathy. It is interesting to note that this expression is used more often in relation to women.
Somatic component
We continue to consider the topic "Make eyes: the meaning of a phraseological unit." Among the huge number of figurative expressions in a special group, quite significant andhighly productive, phraseological units with a somatic component are distinguished. This happens because a person comes into contact, studies the external world through the prism of himself, that is, he describes objects, animals, endowing them with his own image and likeness. Their distinguishing feature is the presence in the composition of words denoting parts of the body of a person or animal. These can be both external parts of the body (head, ears, eyes, mouth, arms, legs) and internal organs (heart, liver, stomach). For example, “puzzle” - tensely solve a difficult problem, “with a gulkin nose” - a little, an insignificant amount of something, “bite your tongue” - sharply shut up, not wanting to give out a secret, “voice of the heart” - intuition, a true understanding of things, "white liver" - a manifestation of cowardice and many others.
It is interesting that stable combinations with the somatic component "eyes" are more frequent and take second place after phraseological units that include the word "head". Apparently, for all people, regardless of nationality, the eyes are still a mirror of the soul, reflecting not only the inner world, but also helping to comprehend, observe, study reality. Confirmation of this and somatism "make eyes". It’s easy to find a synonym for it: play with your eyes, shoot with your eyes, twirl your tail, make eyes. And again, the word “eyes” is most often the main component.
Other languages
Borrowed somatic phraseological units are, as a rule, international phrases. ToFor example, the expression "make eyes" - flirt, flirt, has its analogues in many languages. In the language of Foggy Albion, it sounds like to make eyes at smb, which literally translates as "make eyes at someone", or to make sheep's eyes at smb - "make sheep's eyes at someone." In German, we find the next turn mit den Wimpern klimpern, which literally sounds like “strumming or playing with eyelashes”. In French, the ancestor of this winged expression, we hear faire des yeux doux - “make sweet eyes”. As can be seen from the above examples, the studied phraseological unit retains the image - “eyes”, with the help of which feelings are described, which means that there is also a meaning - to flirt, flirt.
