The great Russian language is rich in winged expressions and phraseological units that can be used to characterize almost any situation. Moreover, it is quite difficult to understand the meaning of some of them. The meaning of the phraseological unit "to get lost in the three pines" is no exception.
Meaning of phraseology
What does "get lost in the three pines" mean? This question can be answered in different ways.
- In a figurative sense, this folk saying means "do not understand an elementary situation", "stumble out of the blue", "get confused in a simple matter". It is used as a humorous and derogatory censure to those who, due to certain circumstances, did not show quickness of mind and ingenuity and could not figure out a simple problem.
- In a relatively figurative sense, idiom means "to get lost where it is practically impossible", for example, where there is nocomplex forks and intricacies of roads and buildings.
The story of the origin of the saying
The meaning of the phraseological unit "to get lost in the three pines" can be interpreted on the example of one literary work. In 1798, a certain Vasily Berezaisky published the book "Anecdotes of the Ancient Poshekhonians", where in a comic satirical form he described the life and life of the inhabitants of Poshekhonye (a real people who once lived along the banks of the Sheksna River).
Representatives of this people in the book exhibited stupid, irresponsible and distracted. In one of the episodes of the book, the Poshekhonians gathered on a journey for happiness, but they never reached happiness, getting lost in three pines: each of the Poshekhonians kept repeating that happiness belongs to one pine, and they never came to a common opinion. Since then, the expression "to get lost in the three pines" has become a household word. It was popularized, in particular, by the Russian writer and journalist S altykov-Shchedrin M. E., using the newly minted phraseological unit in his works.
Since then, we have been actively using this phraseological unit in our daily life, sometimes without thinking about the history of its origin.
