In what speech situations is it better to use the idiom "crocodile tears"?

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:43

Russian is often referred to as the most difficult. And although it is not in the top 10, in the process of studying it, many difficulties can arise. We are talking 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 fixedness in the arrangement of words in sentences and the phenomenon of ambiguity also cause a number of difficulties. Other Slavic peoples can master the Russian language without much difficulty: 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 resident, and therefore difficult to understand and study.

Science Phraseology

No wonder 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 inin Russian. It opens up great opportunities for writers due to its versatility and expressiveness. Epithets, metaphors, personifications, hyperbole - these and other means of artistic expression make speech richer.

This list can also safely include set expressions, that is, phraseological units. Crocodile tears are a speech turnover that has become widespread in the speech of Russians, along with expressions to sit in a puddle, beat the buckets, make an elephant out of a fly, chop on the nose, and others. There are a lot of them in Russian. In bookstores, you can find dictionaries that contain the most popular expressions. It also provides an interpretation of each turnover.

A distinctive feature of phraseological units is the absence of an author. It is possible to trace the history of the emergence of turnover, but it is impossible to name the person who first used this or that phraseological unit. Their main purpose is to give speech a certain emotional coloring and enhance its meaning. Phraseology can be recognized by several signs:

1. Impossibility to rearrange words.

2. Replacing a phrase with one word that has a similar meaning.

3. The presence of figurative meaning.

Crocodile tears: the meaning of phraseology

This speech turnover is used when talking about an insincere person who outwardly sympathizes with the interlocutor, but at the same time experiences completely opposite feelings. There are several similar expressionslanguages, not only in Russian. For example, in English, a phrase similar in meaning to crocodile tears appeared in the 16th century, in German, the expression krokodilstranen appeared around 1730.

How is it right?

You can meet two variants of the same phraseological unit:

1. Listening to my story about the tragic fate of Sonya, he shed crocodile tears.

2. Masha, you should avoid crocodile tears.

Many people wonder which usage is wrong and which is right. The adjective with the suffix -ov- is used when talking about material obtained from the skin of a predator (for example, a crocodile skin bag). The possessive adjective crocodile is used when talking about something that belongs to an animal (for example, crocodile eggs). In the case of phraseology, it is permissible to use both options in speech.

First uses

The expression of 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 was presented. In medieval literature there are also references to this phraseological unit. In particular, in the book "The Travels of Sir John Mandeville", which was distributed in England between 1357 and 1371, it is said that in Ethiopia there are crocodiles that cry while eating people.

A little about crocodiles

But where did this expression come from?

Crocodiles have been known to leak liquid from their eyes when they eat. For a long time it was believed that these are tears that a predator sheds on its prey. Later, the famous medieval author Erasmus of Rotterdam, in one of his treatises, suggested that the tears of crocodiles do not appear out of pity and sympathy for the victim. This liquid is nothing but drool before the most desired meal. It is with this prejudice that the emergence of this phraseological unit is connected.

Also later there was a point of view according to which the liquid that flows from the eyes of crocodiles has nothing to do with pity. In fact, they have an underdeveloped system aimed at removing excess s alts from the body. The glands that remove s alt from the kidneys are located near the eyes. That is why crocodiles do not always cry, but only when these glands are working. This discovery, made by Swedish scientists, did not affect phraseology. He is still popular.

When should crocodile tears be used? The meaning suggests the answer: when you need to talk about a deceitful, insincere person who publicly expresses feelings that he does not experience.

Give examples

1. No one will believe your sympathy, everyone knows that these are crocodile tears.

2. A pack of wolves shed crocodile tears over the body of a sheep they had killed.

So, if one person complains to another about the vicissitudes of fate, but understands that the sympathy of the interlocutor is nothing more than a farce, then one should advise him not to pourcrocodile tears. After all, people are not given to know in advance what situation they may find themselves in after a while. And a public demonstration of insincere emotions can play a cruel joke in the future.