We think that there are no lovers of upholstering the thresholds. But there will be many curious who want to know the meaning of this phraseology. Consider it in detail: meaning, origin and examples of use.
Meaning
Studying the thresholds means walking around, asking for some kind of service, but more often than not, this is a definite official decision. Thresholds usually suffer in the offices of officials.
There is no such adult in Russia who would not know in practice the meaning of this expression. As soon as our parents stop accompanying us, there will certainly be a cause that will force us to upholster the rapids. A characteristic feature of such a walk is its meaninglessness. That is, people do not say in this way when a problem can be solved if you go to one person in one office. So they argue when for a long, long time you have to visit one institution, then another, then a third. This series can be infinite.
Origin
The people's memory has not preserved a special history on this occasion. Apparently, phraseologism arose from direct experience.
From time immemorial, in Russia there have been two unconnected realities: physical and bureaucratic. The main catch is that the second dominated the first. In other words, for something to budge in physical reality, you need to ask for permission and obtain written permission in a bureaucratic reality. By the way, that’s why “Dead Souls” N.V. Gogol is an eternal work! But let's not talk about sad things.
Initial shots of “The Irony of Fate” by E. Ryazanov and phraseological unit
Everyone's favorite New Year’s film is preceded by the frames of the cartoon, which explains how it turned out that the hero got on a plane in Moscow and went out in St. Petersburg, named the address and turned out to be “at home”. We will briefly recount the essence. In the cartoon, the architect created a model house project. The accommodation was very beautiful. There were other buildings surrounding the house, the staircase, of course, everything was sketchy to the limit. The time came when the author had to upholster the thresholds of the offices of officials. And they with a light stroke of the pen freed up the project from the "superfluous", until a simple rectangle with many windows remained from it. The cartoon ends with shots, as typical Soviet homes march around the planet. Fortunately, the prophecy did not come true.
This story, unfortunately, is well known to all people in creative professions who cannot find a permanent place. Translators upholster the doorsteps of book publishers, writers and journalists - newspapers and magazines, and any unemployed - the offices of their potential leaders.
After the reader has learned what kind of expression “to upholster the thresholds” (the meaning of it we have revealed and explained), we can only wish him to go and ask the higher ones as little as possible.