Pies with kittens - is it a recipe or a set expression?

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:40

Phraseologisms and catchphrases occupy a separate place in the vocabulary of the Russian language. They have special origin stories and unusual, often unpredictable, meanings.

We often hear them and use them in speech. So for native speakers, there is nothing unusual in expressions like "Like a cow with her tongue" or "Goal like a falcon." Many do not pay attention to how strange these expressions sound, for example, to foreigners.

Meaning of "kitty pies"

The peculiarity of phraseological units and winged expressions is that when explaining their meaning, you should not interpret each word separately, it is enough to remember and know their meaning as a whole.

The main feature of the expression "Here are these pies with kittens" is that it does not carry a strong semantic load. When you insert this idiom into your speech, you might as well not do it. Because the idiom "Here are the kitten pies" can be easily replaced by the interjection "Like this".

Why then use this expression at all? Like many others, hisused for the emotional component. This phraseological unit is appropriate to say when you reported something, and the conclusion is not very comforting, or you describe some situation that ended sadly.

Use

Let's consider some examples of situations in which it is appropriate to use the idiom "kitty pies":

"Honey, I got fired from my job for not indulging my boss's stupid desires. These are kitten pies." Here the expression has a sad and ironic coloring.

"If we had moved to another area sooner, we wouldn't have lost so much money. These are kitten pies." And here the idiom sounds even darker.

"It looks like there will be more experienced athletes than me, but I promise that I will train hard and do my best to finish first. These are kitten pies!". In this case, phraseology has an encouraging and even encouraging character, which should brighten up the sad meaning of the phrase itself.

Origin

So why all the same pies with kittens? Turning to the origin of phraseological units, one should already interpret their meaning literally. The direct meaning of the expression "pies with kittens" already sounds terrifying. Especially if you know the continuation of this phrase. "These are pies with kittens - they are eaten, and they squeak." And this phraseological unit, like many others, originates from ancient times.

Many years ago, crop failures often occurred in Russia due to insufficiently well-developed agriculture and an unstable climate. The result was severe hunger. In such a rainy season, people had to eat livestock first, and then pets. However, eating cats was considered nonsense, and they were always left last. But when the hunger was so strong, people had to reluctantly start eating cats too.

This phenomenon is ingrained in the memory of the people, so the expression "pies with kittens" appeared, meaning an extreme case of a very sad state of affairs. It is good that now the origin of this expression has already been erased from the memory of the people.