Idiomatic expression and its origin

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

An idiomatic expression is a stable phrase with independent semantics. Quite often, idioms are also called phraseological units. It is worth noting that the term "idiomatic expression" is used in scientific circles, while phraseology is a definition used in everyday life.

When considering the meanings of an idiomatic expression, one should take into account not the individual constituent parts, but its meanings as a whole. If you break phraseology into words and only then try to understand the meaning, you will get just a set of words. Remember, idiomatic expressions are inseparable. It is the form that determines their meaning and significance.

Idiomatic expressions are inherent in all languages and bear the imprint of the cultural and historical development of the people. This is due to the fact that phraseological units reflect the realities of a particular people - customs, names and names of cities.

For example, idiom: "Dine with Duke Humphrey". If you translate it into Russian, you get: "Dine with Duke Humphrey." But who he is and what it means to dine with him - we do not understand. If we turn to the history of phraseology, it becomes clear that before the beggarsthey begged for alms at the tomb of this same duke. It turns out that this expression can be translated into Russian as: "to be left without lunch", "to be poor".

Idiomatic expressions can be divided into several groups depending on their origin.

The first group includes phraseological units of biblical origin. This includes such idioms as "Sodom and Gomorrah", "forbidden fruit". Our language has learned them since the time of the adoption of Christianity and the spread of church literature in the territory of Kievan Rus.

The second group should include idiomatic expressions borrowed from ancient literature: "Augean stables", "Achilles' heel". These phraseological units, as well as idioms of the first group, can be found in any of the languages known to us.

The third group includes the original Russian expressions: "hang your nose", "the tongue will bring you to Kyiv". Quite often, we can find such phraseological units in related languages, such as Ukrainian, Belarusian. This is explained by the fact that for a long time these peoples were in close contact with each other and developed almost simultaneously.

An idiomatic expression can also enter our lives through literature. It is known that the works of the great playwright William Shakespeare have become one of the main sources of English phraseology.

Interesting idiomatic expressions also arise when translating text from one language to another. Enoughoften this happens if the language into which the text is translated does not have a direct equivalent of the phraseological unit. In this case, the idiomatic expression is translated using tracing paper. An example of this can be such phraseological units as "blue stocking", "in a big way". Over time, they enter the lexical fund of the language, become its integral part.

Any idiomatic expression is a wise, skillfully formed thought that carries certain information that is understandable only to a native speaker.