Complot - is it a conspiracy or compote with a typo?

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:53

The word "complot" sounds unusual even for many native Russian speakers. What does it mean?

Meaning of the word "complot"

Dictionaries define this mysterious word as a criminal union. In a narrower sense, a "complot" is a conspiracy against someone with criminal goals. Foreign analogues are mentioned as etymological sources of the word: German Komplott and French complot. In the corresponding transcriptions, it is also present in the dictionaries of English and Spanish.

"Intergovernmental", "secret", "complot against the emperor", "against the revolution" - these are examples of word combinations.

Unfamiliar paronymy

The word "complot" has a so-called "false brother", or a paronym. Paronyms are words that are characterized by partial sound similarity and, at the same time, partial or absolute semantic difference. "Complot" and "compote", "broth" and "bruillon", "subscriber" and "subscription" - that'sexamples of "false brothers", the confusion of which is a gross lexical error. If this mixing occurs, it creates a noticeable comic effect.

So, for example, a number of online news publications reprinted a funny piece of news a few months ago. The Russian Prime Minister, critically commenting on the film of the Anti-Corruption Foundation and, in particular, on the accusations against him, called the investigation en titled "He is not Dimon to you" like a compote. This led to a whole flash mob unfolding on social networks, in which users competed in wit by posting comments and pictures about the words of a high-ranking speaker. In particular, a joke by well-known lawyer Ilya Novikov that the Prime Minister's speechwriters know that "compote" is not "compote", but he himself is not, gathered a large number of ironic comments.

Mysterious paronomasia

At the same time, the deliberate comparison of two paronyms is no longer a lexical error, but a literary device with the difficult-to-pronounce name "paronomasia". It is paronomasia that creates the feeling of a pun, so beloved by the witty sharks of the pen. A good example is a quote from the speech of V. V. Mayakovsky about the criticism of V. P. Polonsky: "I got into the squad, like a fly into the compote."

Use of the word

"Complot" is a word that is not very common in today's time, it can even be perceived as archaic. But in European languages it turns out to be much more common than in Russian.

This word is sometimes used in naming. It is used by brands of drinks, creative studios, and in general "complot" is a good name for those business projects in which a rebellious note is appropriate in the positioned image.