Our contemporary, the Russian writer Oleg Roy, has an aphorism: “Even eyes should be built not just like that, but with a sparkle in them, without blue bags under them and with a charming smile a little lower than them.” Wonderful phrase, right? But today we are not talking about this, but about the stable expression "build eyes."
"Vitamins" for speech
A disease 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 calling is not only the transfer of dry information. No, she wants to penetrate deeper, get to the very essence, inspire, excite, in other words - live a full, vibrant life. So how to 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 are an expression of the attitude, emotions, feelings of the speaker to what is happening. Phraseological unit “to build eyes” is one of such “useful pills”. Why?
Phraseology
Not every phrase can be attributed to phraseological unit. The latter has a number of features that distinguish it from ordinary everyday phrases. Firstly, it is a stable integral combination of two or more tokens (“building eyes” cannot be redone and saying “build sponges”). Secondly, it has a single meaning, which is in no way connected with the value of each component included in its composition. For example, “headlong” means one thing - quickly, which, in turn, in no way correlates with the meanings of the words “headlong” 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. Here work is endless. 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 "build eyes" according to these paragraphs.
Origin
First of all questions, one is tormented - where did phraseologism 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 tales, epics, songs, tales, annals. They are true reflectors of the difficult history of the people, their culture, ancient customs, traditions. Aphorisms, priceless finds of Russian writers, belong to the same group. For example, “beat the bacilli”, “milk rivers, sour banks”, “no fluff, no feathers”, “overgrown with the past”, “set the bathhouse”, “give the birch porridge”, etc.
The origin of the phrase “build eyes” - what to do 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. "Experience of the etymological analysis of Russian phraseological units", this figurative expression is tracing paper, that is, a literal translation from French faire des yeux doux - "make sweet eyes."
What does building eyes mean?
For the meaning of phraseology, as well as for understanding what a particular word means, one should turn to explanatory dictionaries. Fortunately, there are many. This is the “Big Phraseological Dictionary of the Russian Language” edited by Telia V. N., and the “Brief Etymological Dictionary of Russian Phraseology” edited by Shansky N. M., and “Russian Phraseology. Historical and etymological dictionary ”A. Birikh. And many others.
What do all of the above sources say about the expression "build eyes"? The meaning of phraseology is as follows: to flirt, flirt, flirt, openly show your sympathy. It is interesting to note that this expression is used more often with reference to women.
Somatic component
We continue to consider the topic "Build eyes: the meaning of phraseology". Among the huge number of figurative expressions in a special group, quite significant and highly productive, phraseological units with a somatic component stand out. It happens like this, since a person comes into contact, studies the external world through the prism of himself, that is, he describes objects and animals, endowing them with his own image and likeness. Their distinguishing feature is the presence in the composition of words denoting parts of the human or animal body. It can be both the external parts of the body (head, ears, eyes, mouth, arms, legs), and internal organs (heart, liver, stomach). For example, “racking one's brains” means solving a difficult task intensively, “with a gulkin’s nose” means little, an insignificant amount of something, “biting your tongue” means abruptly shut up, don’t want to reveal a secret, “voice of the heart” means intuition, a true understanding of things, "White liver" - a manifestation of cowardice and many others.
An interesting fact is that stable combinations with the somatic component of the “eye” are more frequent and take second place after phraseological units that have the word “head” in their composition. Apparently, for all people, regardless of nationality, eyes are still a mirror of the soul, reflecting not only the inner world, but also helping to comprehend, observe, and study reality. Confirmation of this and somatism "build eyes." It is not difficult to find a synonym for it: play with your eyes, shoot with your eyes, twirl your tail, make eyes. And again, the word “eyes” most often acts as the main component.
Other languages
Borrowed somatic phraseological units are, as a rule, international turnovers. For example, the expression “to build eyes” - to flirt, flirt, has its analogues in many languages. In the language of Misty Albion, it sounds like to make eyes at smb, which literally translates as "make eyes on someone", or to make sheep's eyes at smb - "make sheep’s eyes on someone." In German we find the next revolution mit den Wimpern klimpern, which in a literal transmission sounds like “strum or play 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 phraseological unit under study preserves the image - “eyes”, with the help of which feelings are described, which means there is also the same meaning - to flirt, flirt.