Russian is often referred to as the most difficult. And although he is not in the top 10, a lot of difficulties can arise in the process of studying it. This is not only about its carriers, but also about foreigners. The Russian language has a huge number of rules and even more exceptions to them. The lack of fixation in the arrangement of words in sentences and the phenomenon of polysemy also cause a number of difficulties. Other Slavic peoples can master the Russian language without special difficulties: Belarusians, Ukrainians, Czechs, Slovaks, Poles. Representatives of the Asian world (Chinese, Japanese, Koreans) are unlikely to call this process easy. After all, Slavic languages, including Russian, are arranged differently, and are unusual for the brain of an Asian, and therefore difficult to understand and study.
Science Phraseology
Not for nothing that many classics of world literature admired the beauty of the Russian language, calling it "great and mighty." A huge number of works of art that have replenished the treasury of world literature are written in Russian. He opens up great opportunities for writers due to his versatility and expressiveness. Epithets, metaphors, avatars, hyperbolas - these and other means of artistic expression make speech richer.
This list can be safely attributed to
stable expressions, that is, phraseological units.
Crocodile tears are a speech revolution that has become widespread in the speech of Russians, along with expressions
to sit in a puddle, beat backstage, make an elephant out of a fly, cut it on the nose and others. In Russian there are a lot of them. In bookstores, you can find dictionaries containing the most popular expressions. An interpretation of each turnover is also presented there.
A distinctive feature of phraseologisms is the absence of the author. You can trace the history of the occurrence of the turnover, but you can’t name the person who first used this or that phraseology. Their main purpose is to give speech a certain emotional coloring and enhance its meaning. Phraseologism can be recognized by several signs:
1. The inability to rearrange words.
2. Replacing speech circulation in one word having similar meaning.
3. The presence of figurative meaning.
Crocodile tears: the meaning of phraseology
This speech revolution is used when talking about an insincere person who outwardly sympathizes with the interlocutor, but experiences completely opposite feelings. A similar expression is in several languages, not only in Russian. For example, in English, a similar meaning of
crocodile tears appeared in the XVI century, in German, the expression
krokodilstranen appeared around 1730.
How right?
You can meet two versions of the same phraseology:
1. Listening to my story about the tragic fate of Sonya, he was drenched with crocodile tears .
2. Masha, you should avoid crocodile tears.
Many people wonder what kind of use is wrong and which is right. The adjective with the suffix -ov- is used when it comes to material obtained from the skin of a predator (for example, a bag made of crocodile skin). The possessive adjective crocodile is used when they say that belongs to the animal (for example, crocodile eggs). In the case of phraseology, it is permissible to use both options in speech.
First use cases
The expression of a
crocodile tears has an ancient history. For the first time it is found in the texts of the ancient Romans. The famous library of Constantinople possessed books in which this speech circulation was presented. In
medieval literature there is also mention of this phraseological unit. In particular, the book “The Journey of Sir John Mandeville,” which was distributed in England between 1357 and 1371, says that in Ethiopia there are crocodiles crying while eating people.
A bit about crocodiles
But where did this expression come from?
It is known that fluid flows from the eyes of crocodiles, they eat the code. For a long time it was believed that these are the tears that a predator sheds on its victim. Later, the famous medieval author
Erasmus of Rotterdam in one of his treatises made the assumption that the tears of crocodiles do not appear out of pity and sympathy for the victim. This liquid is nothing more than drooling before the most desired food. It is with this prejudice that the occurrence of this phraseological unit is connected.
Also later, a point of view appeared that the fluid that flows from the eyes of crocodiles is in no way connected with pity. In fact, they have a poorly developed system aimed at removing excess salts from the body. The glands that remove salt from the kidneys are located near the eyes. That is why crocodiles do not always cry, but only when these glands work. This discovery, made by Swedish scientists, did not affect phraseology. He is still popular.
When should you use a crocodile turnover of tears ? The meaning prompts the answer: when it is necessary to say about a lying, insincere person who publicly expresses feelings that he does not experience.
Give examples
1. Nobody will believe your sympathy, everyone knows that these are crocodiles of tears .
2. A wolf pack poured tears from a crocodile over the body of the sheep they killed.
So, if one person complains to another about the twists and turns of fate, but understands that the companion's compassion is nothing more than a farce, then he should be advised not to
shed tears of a crocodile . After all, people are not given to know in advance what situation they may be in after some time. A public demonstration of insincere emotions can play a trick in the future.