In Russian, the interpretation of a word depends heavily on the stress or ending. Because of this, foreign citizens often make mistakes in trying to establish communication. An illustrative example is the "goats", which can turn out to be both livestock, and a characteristic for a social group, and a seat. What evolutionary path did the term make that it acquired so many transcripts? Not all philologists will be able to answer this question.
Mysterious etymology
The definition under study is always read in the plural and, obviously, comes from the name of a ruminant bovine mammal with a bad temper. Experts suggested that, together with related concepts from the languages of Eastern Europe, "goats" is a derivative of a common Proto-Slavic root, which was used specifically to designate an animal. And this is where the differences begin.
Stress on the second syllable
The closest thing for citizens is the image of a bearded horned cattle, prone to butting objectionable. However, there are several popular base values:
- domestic or wild animal;
- mean person.
First optionbasic, encyclopedic. Thanks to him, a ritual scapegoat appeared in Judaism. It was on him, as part of a special ceremony, that they transferred the blame for all the sins of the people, after which they drove him into the desert. Today, the idiom of the same name is used in relation to people who are appointed guilty of other people's mistakes.
In parallel, there is a swear word for prisoners working for the prison administration against fellow inmates, for example, through writing denunciations. Its relatively harmless variant is called a synonym for "red", which refers to activists, organizers of various types of creative activities, foremen, etc.
Within the jargon
But the list doesn't end there! There are terminological and slang goats. These are very unusual things for the average person:
- in sports - a gymnastic apparatus for making a jump;
- in metallurgy - cast iron stuck to the walls of the furnace;
- in aviation - aircraft jumps during landing.
In the colloquial version, there are notations for playing dominoes and for the loser of the game.
Stress on the first syllable
But everything changes if the speaker shifts the accent and emphasizes the vowel "o". In this case, they mean slightly different things:
- seat for coachman;
- roofing for work at height, mounted on a rack of beams;
- stand for sawing firewood.
No matter how strange it may sound, but these are goats. A very polysemantic word of Russian speech.
Casualcommunication
Use fearlessly, the term is devoid of negative connotations in most situations! The only exception is an attempt to apply in relation to the interlocutor or to any group of people. The concept sounds rude in itself, as a way of dehumanizing, but some contemporaries treat the capacious description too painfully and do not hesitate to start a fight.
