Phraseologisms about animals: examples and meanings

Phraseology is a fount of wisdom of any people. Steady expressions, implying a completely different meaning than at first glance, is what makes languages unique. All peoples have sentences, proverbs, just metaphors, in which animals somehow appear. Most often these expressions are associated with the nature of certain animals, with their habits and characteristics. The Russian language is great and powerful, is not it? What are the phraseological units about animals in it? And are they unique or are they found in other nations?

Introduction to phraseology

First you need to understand what is phraseology. Linguists understand by this term any established phrase, whether it's a proverb or a proverb, an idiom (both integral and partially mutable), a winged expression (from literary work, oral speech, and so on). That is, we have every right to expand the issue under consideration from classical expressions to quotations from fables and fairy tales. Thus, phraseological units with animal names are transformed, without exaggeration, into an entire independent section of phraseology.

Attempts to classify

Man has always been surrounded by his lesser brothers. First wild, then tame. With the passage of time, noting the habits of the favorites, he compared them to people, with the surrounding phenomena, and on the basis of these observations appeared phraseological units, which include the names of animals.

Conditionally they can be divided into many groups:

• About domestic animals (like a cat with a dog).
• About wild animals (hungry as a wolf).
• About birds (mother-cuckoo).
• About insects (importunate as a fly).
• About fish (neither fish nor meat), etc.

In addition, the phraseological units also have a stylistic division: some of them are bookish (free as a bird), others are more conversational (like a fish about ice), and others are completely prostoretchnymi ( shuffling a goat like a sider).

Origin

Of course, to consider phraseological units about animals without deepening into the history of their origin is absolutely impossible. Some expressions appeared as characteristics of certain qualities of animals: foxes are cunning, hence the opinion that a cunning person can be a "fox"; Hares, in turn, rarely show miracles of courage, which is why it is not traditionally bold that they are "cowardly as rabbits".

Another source of phraseology is mythology. In ancient Slavs, the cock was considered the symbol of Perun, the god of thunder. The thunderstorm often led to fires, hence the association of the poultry with fire, and hence the expression "to let the red rooster" mean "burn".

They could not help influencing the language and traditions of the peoples. For example, the Jews had a custom once a year to offer a sacrifice to God, which was to atone for all their sins. Traditionally, the goat was entrusted to the altar, behind which the glory of the "scapegoat" was fixed. The custom has long since disappeared, but here is the person who has to pay for the mistakes and sins of others, is still called that way.

Some animals were "rewarded" with phraseologicalisms for their role in human life. The horse, without which it is impossible to imagine the peasant life, has long been perpetuated in certain combinations, such as "plowing like a horse" and "from work horses are dying", which emphasized its exceptional performance.

The writers created phraseologisms about animals in their works on the basis of the opposition: "Elephant and Moska" (large and small), "Wolf and Sheep" (hunter and victim), "Dragonfly and the Ant" (slacker and hard worker) - this helped to illustrate most clearly Work, creating an image for readers, as close to reality.

Phraseological units in different languages

Phraseology is international - it's understandable right away. Every nation has its own associations with certain animals. For example, in the UK there is an expression equivalent to Russian "pouring like a bucket", which literally means "pouring cats and dogs." The emergence of this phraseology is attributed to the fact that before the roofs of houses were covered with such material that when it got wet it became very slippery, so the cats that roamed the roofs broke down - hence the expression for heavy rain. In German, the Russian "blind man" corresponds to the game "blind cow".

In addition, the national specifics can change the "heroes" of phraseological units: the Russian "Kill one stone with two birds with one stone" is equivalent to the German one "Swat two flies with one stroke", and "That's where the dog is buried!" Is equal to "Here is the peppercorn in this rabbit!" Around and around "in the German version turns into" Walking like a cat around a hot porridge ", and" Hungry as a dog "relates to a bear, not a dog. Russian "Sleep as a marmot" in German sounds "Sleep like a stone."

There are a lot of such examples. It is important to understand that translating phraseological units literally in no case is impossible. Associations with different animals can be different, so it's better to be safe and use a more neutral expression. Phraseological units in their speech are used only by those who are fully convinced of their knowledge of the language. Therefore, be careful when applying phraseological units about animals, and any others too, in a foreign language.

Phraseologisms in Russian

But, probably, it's time, it's time to move on to how animals are displayed in Russian phraseological units. Usually zoomorphisms, namely so scientifically called this section of phraseology, describe either the characterization of the person, or the way he does this or that action. Of course, in terms of their meaning, phraseological units are divided into a large number of groups.

The most extensive and general - showing the positive and negative qualities of human nature. For example: affectionate calf, monkey with a grenade, like a bull on a red rag, stubborn donkey, healthy like a bull and so on. In any phraseology, one can discern a shade of attitude towards the fact that this phraseology is applied in relation to.

Negative phraseological units

Well, now consider in more detail one of the sections that were mentioned above. Negative phraseological units with animals, examples of which occur very often, occupy a huge niche in zoomorphisms. Speaking of fatigue, we use the words "to hunt," "spin like a squirrel in a wheel", "work like a wolf" - all this means hard work, workload. Noting human stupidity, we remember: "to look like a ram to a new gate," "it goes like a giraffe," and when we say that a person has more naskodil than helped, we use the expression "a disservice". In phraseology, where dirt is mentioned, she always communicates with pigs: "dirty as a pig", "slander". And noting the incompetence, we use such zoomorphisms as "sort out like a pig in oranges", emphasizing "gracefulness", we recall "a cow on ice" and an "elephant in a china shop", and if we talk about a person deprived of a musical ear, we will certainly say that He "the bear in your ear has come."

Touching on the topic of excessive appetite and alcohol abuse, we most often return to the pigs ("get drunk as a pig", "up to a pig's screech") and wolf predators ("wolf appetite", "bull to eat"). And all these examples are only a small fraction in the vast world of phraseological units, on which we do not stop, but only warm up and are preparing for further study of this issue.

Phraseological units in fables

How can you study the phraseology about animals, while not remembering the fables of Krylov? It is in them that we find a huge number of expressions already so firmly entrenched in the language that it is even difficult to believe in their "non-native" origin. "The swan, the cancer and the pike" - the display of inconsistency, "the cuckoo praises the cock for praising the cuckoo" - about flatterers, "the elephant and the moska" - about the struggle of the little and the big, "Martyshkin labor" - useless work, "crow in Peacock feathers "- about a man who pretends to be different ... All of these phrases are familiar to us from childhood, moreover, they also cause a whole wave of associations all their same fables: what is the brightest image of a monkey and glasses!

In fact, the use of stable expressions in literature is the best way to popularize phraseological units about animals and their significance, that is why one can not belittle the merits of literary men in this matter.

About pets

And I would like to end this topic with phraseology with domestic animals. Describing those smaller brothers who are always before our eyes is much easier than wolves, bears and foxes hiding in the woods, the habits of which can be known to most people only by hearsay. In the language there have long been expressions like "cat and dog", "affectionate bodies of two mums suck," "old horse furrow will not spoil", "angry like a dog" - all of them are united by the mention of pets.

It is likely that these phraseological units are the closest to a Russian person and reflect his attitude to this or that animal most clearly: in zoomorphisms about horses, respect for diligence is always heard, cats are most often shown as independent creatures, pigs are associated with uncleanness, cows are usually stupid .

PS

Phraseologisms make our speech brighter and more imaginative, demonstrate erudition and rich horizons. That's why it's just necessary to use similar expressions in speech and, most importantly, to use them correctly.