The role of phraseological units in the Russian language can hardly be overestimated. Thanks to their use, the speaker’s speech becomes especially colorful, lively, imaginative. The roots of a great many stable expressions should be sought in the folk language. It is he who is the storehouse of truly precious treasures of our modern dictionary.
Meaning of the expression “hedgehogs”
When one person wants to characterize the methods or techniques of raising another, emphasizing their particular severity, perhaps even cruelty, he most often declares that he keeps his family in a black body. It is appropriate in the same sense to use the phraseology “hedgehogs”.
The phrase, say, “fox fur coat”, “beaver hat” is quite familiar, but what does a garment from a prickly mammal look like and does it really exist? We learn this by examining the etymology of phraseology.
The history of the origin of the expression
It turns out that such mittens were not made from the skin of a beast, but to capture him. As you know, hedgehogs along with cats are good mousetraps. And peasants in former times very often used them precisely for this purpose, launching undergrounds into their cellars.
And how is it more convenient to catch the thorny creature so that you yourself won’t get hurt and not injure him? Here hedgehogs came to the rescue - specially made for catching mouse hunters. They sewed them without a lining, made of very rough leather, and they were called shanks.
Use of expression in speaking and literature
It is believed that “hedgehogs” mean not just strictness in upbringing, attitude, but restriction of freedom, perhaps exaggerated, but from the very best intentions - for the benefit of the educated person.
The old expression, which the classic writers used more than once in their work, unexpectedly acquired a new sound during the years of Stalin's repressions. These same mittens were associated among the people with the surname of the head of the NKVD Yezhov - much more eloquent!
If we note the use of expression in literature, we immediately recall an episode from Pushkin's “Captain's Daughter”. There, the main character, handing his future boss a letter from his father, is trying to cheat, explaining in his own way to the German general the meaning of the words "to keep it tight." Say, this means treating gently, without severity, but he quickly realizes that this is not so, continuing to read the letter.
In modern colloquial speech, this expression is not so common.