Looking in the dictionary: the ignorant is who?

Modern Russian language in many ways differs from the way our ancestors used it a hundred and more years ago. Alive and mobile, he changes with society. Studying, for example, the lexical composition of speech, one can see what innovations in the field of science, technology, politics and other spheres were introduced, and what has irretrievably gone into the past. After all, neologisms, historicisms, obsolete words - all this is our story, imprinted in the word.

Know - do not know, know - do not know

Current speakers of the language often find it difficult to explain: who is the ignoramus? They confuse him with another word, close in meaning and meaning - ignoramus. Let's try to shed some light on an entertaining riddle. To do this, look in the dictionary. For example, Vladimir Dahl treats the lexeme as follows: "A runaway is a word formed from verbs not knowing, not knowing, not being able to. Neuch, disrespectful, not able to behave, keep to the people. For example: you do not tell the conic on the conic, so he will climb under the image. "

Along the way, Dahl points out that even though the word "ignoramus" goes back to the same roots, its significance is different: an uneducated person, not burdened with book knowledge, is dark. As an example, Vladimir Ivanovich quotes: "The scribe is his own, the ignoramus is his own," "do not demand knowledge from ignoramuses." At the same time, he emphasizes that "ignorance is equal to ignorance." Thus, according to Dal, ignorant is a person with gaps in upbringing, behavior, and ignoramus in education, knowledge, educational subjects.

Ushakov's Dictionary

Continuing our language study, let us turn to another authoritative source - the Explanatory Dictionary edited by Ushakov. It indicates that the word refers to both male and female. The author selects two values for the token. First: the ignorant is a rude person, disrespectful. The second is a synonym for the colloquial "ignoramus". As synonyms, such examples are given: a vakhla, a peasant, a collective farmer, a peasant, a ruffian, etc. That is, Ushakov unites both concepts into one. To what extent this position is legitimate, let us examine it a little later.

Dictionary of Ozhegova-Shvedova

In the Explanatory Dictionary of Modern Russian, edited by Ozhegov, we read: "The nevezha is a rude, disrespectful, ill-bred man." That is, there is a clear boundary between "being literate" and "being educated". It turns out that Ozhegov more accurately than Ushakov, takes into account the semantics of the word, the shades of its meaning and possible situations of use. This interpretation is more in line with the model of modern society. For example, such a phenomenon as the barbaric, disregard for art works, monuments of architecture, picturesque corners of nature does not just testify to the lack or lack of education and knowledge, but about gaps in education, spiritual, moral savagery and lack of culture. It is in this sense that the word "ignorant" is used against modern savages. And the synonym "Sharikov" cited in the dictionary approaches him as well as possible by the way.

Grammatical aspect

Let us now dwell on the grammatical categories that determine the morphological and syntactic nature of the word. They will also help to clarify its lexical meaning. Nevezha is a noun, animate, of a general kind (that is, it can be used for both male and female representatives), the first declension. It can take the form of both singular and plural. With word-building analysis, the prefix "not", root "vege", ending "a" is extracted. By origin goes back to the Church Slavonic "ignoramus" (from yat) from "know". For detailed proof see below.

To the question of etymology

Lexems "ignoramus", "know", "polite" are included in the nest of related, but not root words. "To know" is a verb that goes back to the Old Russian "lead", ie, "to know." "Polite" comes from the word "Vezha" - "connoisseur", long since out of use. Thus, initially the tokens were delineated in origin, meaning, stylistic use. Namely: "ignorant" has ancient Russian roots. Formed with the help of the prefix "not-" it is from the Old Russian word "Vezha", that is, the "expert", as indicated by the characteristic sign: incompleteness. The word "ignoramus" has an entirely different origin, Old Slavonic. The combination of "railway" indicates this is absolutely obvious, as well as in such words: clothes, birth, between. In the late 18th and 19th centuries, both words were synonymous, denoting the same concept: they pointed to the person of the uneducated, not well versed in knowledge, who is ignorant. Then in the language practice, the values were transformed. Disadvantages are increasingly called rude people, disrespectful.

The hue of the meaning of "poorly educated" is gradually being replaced, leaving in the discharge of obsolete ones. But modern speakers often confuse both words, using them in place of one another. This phenomenon, when the words sound almost the same, but are written differently and denote different concepts, is called paronymy, and the tokens themselves are paronyms.

Such interesting words-brothers are in our language!