Origin of the word "to fuck". Letter x in Russian figurative meanings of the name “dick”
In the Old Russian alphabet the letter X was called “Her”. From it came the words “herit”, “poherit” in the meaning of “crossing out something on paper with a cross.” At first, these words were used by schoolchildren when they crossed out mistakes, then it turned into professional, business, clerical jargon. Gradually, “to lose” expanded its meaning and turned into “liquidate,” “lose,” and “spoil.”
There are many examples of the use of this verb in Russian classical literature.
In Turgenev’s story “Klara Milich”:
“Finally, he got tired of it all - and he decided, as they say, to “take it upon himself” and throw away this whole story, since it undoubtedly interfered with his studies and disturbed his peace.”
In Leskov’s essay “In Moscow”:
“What a pig, however, is this Rozanov: he, too, will certainly need to be fucked.”
In A. Tolstoy’s “Don Juan” (in the speech of Satan):
The trouble is to deny everything! You have to believe otherwise
Otherwise, damn it, I would have to
I'm going to fuck myself!
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LETTER FUCK
http://vk.com/feed?w=wall-42855938_237511In the Old Russian alphabet the letter X was called “Her”. From it came the words “herit”, “poherit” in the meaning of “crossing out something on paper with a cross.” At first, these words were used by schoolchildren when they crossed out mistakes, then it turned into professional, business, clerical jargon. Gradually, “to lose” expanded its meaning and turned into “liquidate,” “lose,” and “spoil.”
There are many examples of the use of this verb in Russian classical literature.
In Turgenev’s story “Klara Milich”:
“Finally, he got tired of it all - and he decided, as they say, to ‘take it upon himself’ and throw away this whole story, since it undoubtedly interfered with his studies and disturbed his peace.”
In Leskov’s essay “In Moscow”:
“What a pig, however, is this Rozanov: he, too, will certainly need to be fucked.”
In A. Tolstoy’s “Don Juan” (in the speech of Satan):
The trouble is to deny everything! You have to believe otherwise
Otherwise, damn it, I would have to
I'm going to fuck myself!
| Created 15 Jan 2015 | |||||||||
X, X(Russian name: Ha; sometimes in abbreviations heh: hebe) - the letter of all Slavic Cyrillic alphabets (22nd in Bulgarian, 23rd in Russian, 24th in Belarusian, 26th in Serbian and Ukrainian, 27th in Macedonian); is also used in the writings of some non-Slavic peoples. In the Old and Church Slavonic alphabets it is called “kher”, the meaning of which is not clear: it is difficult to consider it, as is often done, associated with the word “cherub” (the latter did not contain yat, although as a phonetic adaptation of soft back-lingual yat could sometimes appear in borrowings, for example, spellings like Herman); another version refers to Greek words like χαι̃ρε [here](rejoice) or χείρ [hir](hand). In the Cyrillic alphabet it is usually considered the 23rd in order and looks like ; in the Glagolitic alphabet, counting 24, it looks like . In both alphabets the numerical value is 600.
Origin
The origin of the Cyrillic letter (and Glagolitic arachnid) is the Greek letter chi (Χ, χ); the main Glagolitic form is of unclear origin (usually also traced back to the Greek “chi”, but the complete asymmetry of the result is not clear; there is also a version with modified Latin h).
In ancient times, there was a second Glagolitic style, the so-called “spider-shaped” - in the form of a circle with four hooks in the corners: Ⱒ . It is found in monuments 4 times: 1 time in the Assemanian Gospel and 3 times in the Sinai Psalter. In all cases, the sign conveyed the first letter in the word “khlym” (hill). According to the “Alphabet Prayer” of Constantine of Preslav and the Munich Abecedary, the “arachnoid x” - Ⱒ - was included in the Glagolitic alphabet as a separate (33rd) letter.
Cyrillic letter shape X had no noticeable options, except that in cursive writing it could be depicted in one stroke without lifting the pen from the paper, which usually looked similar to handwriting α . With the introduction of the civil font, the letter style X identified with the shape of the Latin letter “X”.
Pronunciation
In modern Russian the letter X denotes a voiceless velar fricative consonant sound: hard [x] or soft (softened before e And And; combinations with other softening vowels and with b rare and found only in borrowings: Huizinga, Hübner, Pyhäjärvi, Houston). Practically incompatible with s: this only happens in borrowings ( Arkhyz). Combinations with uh also rare: in borrowings in this case, fluctuations in spelling are common uh/e: happening/happening, hash/hash, taekwondo/taekwondo etc., and in difficult words between X And uh a syllable division occurs: two-story, super energetic.
In others Slavic languages soft pronunciation is less common than in Russian.
In Serbian, the pronunciation of the letter X weakened to [h] and even to the complete disappearance of the sound, and therefore Vuk Karadzic initially did not include this letter at all in the reformed Serbian alphabet, which greatly changed the appearance of many words: du(x)ovnik, patriarch(x), (x)oraciјe, (x)rishћanstvo, (x)rvatsk.
Moksha language
In the Moksha language it denotes the sound [x], and is also used in double letters LH = , РХ = , ИХ = [ç] to stun sonorant ones.
Chechen language
In Chechen grammar, the letter X is a gaitar (indicator) of hottalurg dozhar (substantial case).
Figurative meanings of the name “dick”
- Due to the shape of the letter X its name dick often used to refer to something cross-shaped: Dahl mentions the “game of heriki-oniki” (tic-tac-toe) and the expression “legs with a dick” as the opposite of “legs with a wheel.” This is where the word comes from fuck(initially - cross out; cf. Leskov: The Bishop crossed out the consistory decision on the appointment of an investigation).
- Being the first letter obscene word, word dick began to be actively used as a euphemism since the 19th century. As a result, by the 1990s, in the USSR the word “her” and its derivatives (for example, “poherit”) began to be perceived by many as taboo, since the original names of Cyrillic letters were forgotten by the bulk of the population. This fact left its mark on the use of the word “dick” in the post-Soviet era, despite the change in attitude towards obscene vocabulary.[ source not specified 1586 days]
Code table
Encoding Register Decimal16-digit code
Octal code
Binary code
| Unicode | Uppercase | 1061 | 0425 | 002045 | 00000100 00100101 |
| Lowercase | 1093 | 0445 | 002105 | 00000100 01000101 | |
| ISO 8859-5 | Uppercase | 197 | C5 | 305 | 11000101 |
| Lowercase | 229 | E5 | 345 | 11100101 | |
| KOI 8 | Uppercase | 232 | E8 | 350 | 11101000 |
| Lowercase | 200 | C8 | 308 | 11001000 | |
| Windows 1251 | Uppercase | 213 | D5 | 325 | 11010101 |
| Lowercase | 245 | F5 | 365 | 11110101 |
Capitalize the letter in HTML: X can be written as X or X, and the lowercase X- like x or x.
Dick
Wiktionary has an article "dick"- Dick- the name of the letter “ha” in the Old and Church Slavonic alphabet.
- Dick- a common euphemism in Russian for the obscene word “huy”.
- Jer is the Spanish name for the municipality of Jer in Catalonia.
- Her, Ronnie (born 1981) - Swiss combined athlete, participant in three Olympic Games.
- Rolf de Heer (born 4 May 1951) is an Australian film director of Dutch descent.
Do you know the meaning of the letter "Her" in the Church Slavonic alphabet?
In terms of views, this question is in second place for me. But no one gave the correct answer.Maybe now there will be experts? - 5 years ago
Alex the hare stealer
As far as I know, “her” in Church Slavonic meant “cross”. They are both the letter X and the cross and are visually similar, so there is nothing surprising about this. What scares me more is how the meaning of such words is transformed into a modern one...
If you take a picture that shows the alphabet, you will notice that the letters
“Her”, “Omega”, “Tsy” and “Worm” stand separately from the rest, being in the so-called Divine part of the alphabet. In addition, the letters “Her” and “Omega” are highlighted additionally and placed in a circle in the very center. Perhaps this is done to show that the meaning of these letters must be considered inextricably. Taking into account the fact that the letter “Her” was probably taken from the Greek alphabet, in which it denotes the Universe, and its numerical value of 600 corresponds to the word “cosmos”, and the letter “Omega” denotes the word “faith”, it can be assumed that combined together they can mean "Faith in God (as the beginning of everything)."
Another possible meaning of the letter "Omega" is the end, finality and death. Then, perhaps for the letter “Her” the meaning is the beginning (which does not exclude the fact that it may have the meaning “God”). And enclosed in a circle, they symbolize the Beginning and the End - everything that exists.
There is a translation of this sentence:
Rtsy’s word is firm - uk fret dick.
Carry your word with conviction. Knowledge is a gift from God!
Again we have the meaning of the letter “Her” - God.
It turns out that most likely the meaning of the letter “Her” is God (or the beginning of everything, the Cosmos, the Universe).
Vissarion
Kher means god, specifically the solar god Khors (Hore, Khurs, Khrs).
“Hors is the god of the solar disk, the god of the world order associated with the course of the sun. Therefore, any solstice was considered the days of Khors, for example, summer - June 21 to 25 (Kupala), autumn - September 21-23 (Ovsen Maly, Tausen, Autumn Khoros). The Khorsa symbol is not historically defined. But, in neo-paganism it is a cross in a circle.” http://img0.liveinternet.ru/images/attach/c/5/87/605/87605356_H.jpg
Its analogues are Horus (Chorus, Egyptian hr - Heru); Thracian Gero (Hero), one of whose epithets was “Savior”; Greek Hercules (lat. Hercules), the god of the Greek horoscope, who performed one feat in each zodiac sign.
Irina Vasilievna
I can say that, according to the instructions of Bernecker, who cited the oral message of Abicht, the name of the Church Slavonic letter X- `cher" is a conditional abbreviation, or rather: the first sound part of the word cherovim or cherubim (Greek χερουβίμ; E. Berneker. V. I, s. 387). Obviously, it was this word (in its spelling and sound) that illustrated the meaning of the letter X - in teaching church- Slavic alphabet. It is from this word “her” that the verb “herit” is derived (cf. vyherit, poherit, zaherit) - “to cross out with a cross like the letter “her.” Compare zaherit in A. N. Ostrovsky’s play “The Heart is Not a Stone”: “Take a piece of paper!” .. Screw it, screw it all!”
Ad libitum
I opened my textbook of the Old Church Slavonic language, it says the following:
Glagolitic - a sign that I can’t draw here, which denotes a letter, then the name of this letter is this word хъръ, again I can’t write it in Old Church Slavonic, since in this word the second letter is written slightly differently than just ъ, higher.
Therefore, it is simply the name of a letter in the Glagolitic alphabet.
I found an alphabet on the Internet, and it says there that this word means universal balance, coherence, harmony. But still, this is the name of a letter in the Glagolitic alphabet, like az, beeches, vedi, and so on.
Elena-kh
I first became acquainted with the letter “dick” in Pushkin’s book. Then he wrote that someone had spread their legs and it looked like the letter “dick.”
Later, another writer, Dostoevsky, wrote about this letter.
Purely in linguistic terms, the meaning of this letter is this: it’s just the letter “x”.
And if we delve deeper into figurative meanings, then “dick” means 2 traits criss-crossed, nothing, them... :) This is where the swear word arose.
Caroline
This letter consists of the syllable KE or XE (derived from the Greek letter “chi”, read as “xi”) and the syllable RЪ. As a result, we get the sign that in the Glagolitic alphabet stands for the letter X. This was later tied to “Cherub”
Bestfriend
In Max Vasmer's dictionary, in addition to the assumption that the name of the letter is an abbreviation for the word "cherub", another meaning is proposed - "hello to you", they admit that this name of the letter came from the Greek language.
Olegator
There is a funny word in the Russian language, which, although absolutely literary, is perceived by some people as indecent and almost obscene. This word is "fuck". It comes from the name of the letter “X” (her) of the Church Slavonic alphabet. This letter did not immediately begin to be written as simplified as it is now, which is why its association with the cross and the crossing out did not immediately arise (not earlier than from the 13th-14th centuries). In the Middle Ages, this word meaning “cross out” with connotations of “destroy” or “mark” spread first in school, then in business and clerical language. In Leskov’s “Councils”, Deacon Achilla says: “Vladyka crossed out the consistory decision to order an investigation into the sermon and quietly reassured everyone by appointing Father Saveliy to the position of clerk at the bishop’s house.” Since the 17th century, the meaning of “destroy”, “exclude from what is written” has been strengthened. The word is becoming very popular and has many forms that have not reached us. They said: screw it up, screw it up, screw it up, screw it up and even screw it up! In the 19th century it was actively used in literature. For example, in Turgenev’s story “Klara Milich”: “...he was tired of everything - and he decided... to trash this whole story...”. In Leskov’s essay “In Moscow”: “What a pig, however, is this Rozanov: he, too, will certainly need to be fucked.” And it’s especially delicious in Ostrovsky’s play “The Heart is Not a Stone”: “Take a piece of paper!... Screw it, screw it all!”
But that's not the most interesting thing. The most interesting thing is the origin of the name of the letter “dick” itself. This word was a conventional abbreviation of the word “cherub”.
Vagabundo
In the Old Russian alphabet the letter X was called “her”. This is where the word “poherit” comes from, meaning “to cross out something on paper with a cross.” And only later this word acquired modern meaning: “spoil”, “lose”. In general, the dick designates any oblique cross, similar in design to the letter X.
Well, here’s another thing: X, dick is the twenty-second letter
in the old Russian alphabet;
“herom legs” means crooked legs;
“poherit” - cross out what is written.
When and under what circumstances did the letter "dick" become a dirty word?
Lyudmila Shepeleva
I agree with Andrey.
““Herit” means to cross out a cross on a cross, and “dick” means a CROSS! We are accustomed to believe that the word “dick” in Russian was and is used (along with a “three-letter word”) to denote male sexual organ. But this was not always a contradiction: in Christian philosophical symbolism, the cross on which Christ was crucified was viewed not as an instrument of shameful execution, but as a triumph of life over death. Thus, the word “dick” is like “another word of the three.” letters", were originally used in Rus' to designate the word "cross". It should also be noted that the letter "x" was depicted in the Old Russian language in the form of two intersecting lines not by chance - Christ, Christianity, Christians, temple, kher (cross). the opinion that the famous phrase: “Fuck you all...! “the defenders of Slavic paganism came up with; they shouted this phrase, swearing at Christians who came to instill their faith. “Fuck you!” " or " Fuck you...! " - originally meant a curse: "may you be crucified, like your God! “(literally: “Go to the cross!”). Then the religious meaning of these words was lost, since with the victory of Orthodoxy in Rus', the term “cross” ceased to have a vulgar, negative meaning for the people.
Andrey Kotousov
Kher is the name of the Cyrillic letter X. Initially, “pokherit” or “put kher” meant roughly checking someone’s text cross-on-cross. And then the word migrated to the category of swear words, meaning to express gross disrespect.
...on the topic... The letter was called "her" from the word "cherub" (comment)
http://blogs.mail.ru/mail/vznakprotesta/10E6AF2598BA988A.htmlTekhnomad (teh_nomad) writes in ru_antireligion - http://ru-antireligion.livejournal.com/8035615.html
2012-05-14
Orthodox Christians can be safely sent to hell.
Because it's canonical. Proof from dirty.ru
Often, when reading comments, I come across phrases like “I put it on…” or “I put it on it...”, and, usually, it is not indicated what exactly the author put. Only sometimes, especially frank ones, they clarify: “I gave a fuck about you” (sometimes more rudely). My imagination has always drawn to me extraordinary acrobatic sketches performed by the author of this statement; and, anyway, I had little idea of the process itself :) I suddenly became interested in where it came from this expression- and this is what turned out to be:
It turns out that this expression is very weakly connected with our physiology (thank God), and the ordinary letter “X” is to blame for everything. The thing is that in the Old Church Slavonic language this letter was called “her” and, due to its shape, it was used to designate everything more or less cruciform. There was even such an expression as “legs are crap.” So, the expressions “to cross out with a dick” or “to put a dick on” simply meant “to put a cross”, “to cross out”. The word “to fuck” had the same meaning (and not “to lose,” as I always thought).
In light of all of the above, now the phrase “fuck you” sounds like a blessing, sorry...
........................................
From the site - wordhist.narod.ru -
HISTORY OF WORDS
V. V. VINOGRADOV
FUCK
Many words derived from Church Slavonic bases or Church Slavonic morphological elements in general are so structurally and semantically removed from them that the semantic connection can only be restored by etymological research. Sometimes functional shifts in the meaning of words also make themselves acutely felt here. The functional semantics of a word includes those processes of changing the meanings of words that are caused not by a shift in the phraseological contexts of their use, not by internal shifts in the semantic structure of the language, but by a rethinking or new functional relationship of the objects themselves denoted by words, a new nominative use of words, caused again open communication things. In this functional aspect, for example, it is interesting to follow the expansion and change in the meanings of such words that arose as symbols for the letters of the Slavic alphabet.
According to the instructions of Bernecker, who cited the oral message of Abicht, the name of the Church Slavonic letter X- `her" is a conditional abbreviation, or rather: the first sound part of the word cherovim or cherubim (Greek χερουβίμ; E. Веrneker. В. I, s. 387). Obviously , it was this word (in its spelling and sound) that illustrated the meaning of the letter X - when teaching the Church Slavonic alphabet. It was from this word kher that the verb herit was derived (cf. vyherit, pokherit, zaherit) - “to cross out with a cross like the letter kher.” Wed. screw it up in A. N. Ostrovsky’s play “The Heart is Not a Stone”: “Take a piece of paper!... Screw it, screw it all!” (D. 1, Rev. 4).
The verb herit was formed in school and then in professional, business, clerical language. It is a denominative formation (from the word xer).Her is the name of the letter x in the Church Slavonic alphabet311. In the dictionary of 1847, the word xhr was defined as “the name of one of the aspirated letters of the Russian alphabet, in the Slavic alphabet there are 24, and in the Russian alphabet there are 22; in church counting X means 600” (fol. 1867-1868, 4, p. 874). But already in medieval Russian (however, hardly earlier than the 13th-14th centuries), the word dick acquired the meaning of a symbol in the form of a cross. Wed. in the land survey document of the early 16th century: “and on the stump there are two dicks on the cross”””” (Obnorsky, p. 35). This is where the verb herit arises (cf. zaherit, poherit) with the meaning: “to destroy or mark something... with the image of a cross or a dick, to cross out, to cross out” (see sl. 1867-1868, 4, p. 874). Compare in “Councils” by N. S. Leskov (in the speech of Deacon Achilla): “...The bishop crossed out the consistor’s decision to order an investigation into the sermon and quietly reassured everyone by appointing Father Savely to the position of clerk at the bishop’s house.” (1957, 4, pp. 239-240). It is clear that in Sreznevsky’s “Materials” the verb hhriti is not indicated.
Apparently, as clerical business words, the verbs kherit and poherit were widely used in the Russian language in the 17th-18th centuries. Wed. in the dictionaries of the Russian Academy: “To trash - to blot out, to exclude something from what is written. Lose whose name is on the list” (Part 5, p. 103). But in the middle style fiction these expressions were not included.
From the meaning of “cross out - cross out, mark with a cross like the letter X” - in the verb herit - (in the form of the owl species poherit) the connotation easily develops: “destroy, liquidate.” This expansion of the scope of the meaning of the word herit - poherit appeared in the colloquial bureaucratic, official dialect - a long time ago - no later than the 18th century. But this shade of meaning came out especially sharply in Russian literary language from 30-40 years XIX century, when the word poherit was allowed into the styles of artistic and narrative literature. From I. S. Turgenev in the story “Klara Milich”: “Finally, he was tired of it all - and he decided, as they say, to “take over” and throw away this whole story, since it undoubtedly interfered with his studies and disturbed his peace "(chapter 8). In N. S. Leskov’s essay “In Moscow”: “What a pig, however, is this Rozanov: he, too, will certainly need to be fucked.”
In A. Tolstoy’s “Don Juan” (in the speech of Satan):
The trouble is to deny everything! You have to believe otherwise
Otherwise, damn it, I would have to
I'm going to fuck myself!
The note has not been published previously. The archive contains a typescript with the author's corrections. It is printed from typescript with a number of necessary clarifications and amendments.
In the article “Word formation in its relation to grammar and lexicology (on the material of Russian and related languages)” V.V. Vinogradov writes: “For us, the formation of the letter xer from cherub is especially interesting. In the elementary prayer: “Her-ovsk mi thought and mind give”” and further: “It is well known that in the Russian language the verb pokherit’ originated from the name of the letter kher” (Selected tr.: Research on Russian grammar, p. 220) . In “Essays on the history of Russian. lit. language." Grot's list of common words in Derzhavin's poems is quoted: “...cf. colloquial words in Derzhavin's language: rastobary, shlendat, perecheryat, tazat, shashni, poshva, din, gamit, dutik, (all dutik, all red-cheeked, vol. 2, p. 611), cummer, commotion (and beautiful nymphs commotion, t " For the capture of Ishmael,” stanza 22), sterebilit (sterilize the skin of a lion, vol. 2, p. 181), snore, chobot (choboto chobot knock, “To the Lover of Arts,” stanza 12) and many more. etc.)” (Essays, p. 141). - V.P.
311 Yagich I. V. Reasonings of Yugoslavian and Russian antiquity about the Church Slavonic language // Studies in the Russian language, vol. 1, St. Petersburg, 1888. P. 606.
Do you know the origin and meaning of the words “crap”, “crap”, “crap”?
Little Imp #13
Horseradish - 1. female individual of the genus of perennial herbs of the cruciferous family (see Horseradish). H. vulgaris - unlike the male species, does not contain vitamin C, essential oils and phytoncides in its roots, and therefore is not used as a spicy seasoning. Dangerous weed. Outwardly, it is an extremely massive root with tops (see), possessing enormous weight (Hence: UNSTIFF - i.e., doing something heavy and thankless). H. japonica - the same as Japanese Policeman, Japanese Umbrella, Japanese Crocodile, Japanese Stump, etc. Pronounced with the obligatory doubling of the “p” sound. For example: Japanese-Japanese kimono! 2. The spirit of death in the legends of the JAPANESE ELECTRICAL WORKERS UNION. The phenomenon of X. foreshadows an extremely quick death from electric shock. As a rule, the electrician only has time to scream: “What the hell?!!!” (And given the relatively long duration of the corresponding Japanese phrase - Nanigoto sukoshi wasabi-tyan?!!! - it doesn’t even have time for this). And then he falls dead (hence the expression - Holy shit - magaru wasabi). An electrician who, by force of will, manages to refrain from this exclamation has a chance to remain alive and be buried alive, which is considered a great honor among electricians, who in Japan for the most part come from SAMURAI (q.v.).
DICK
Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language by V. Dahl
HER HER, letter, see x at the beginning. Game of heriki, crosses, oniki. To delete a letter, to delete, (to delete), to cross or erase, to cross out. -sya, they suffer. His legs are crap, the opposite sex. wheel.
herit [erased out, crossed out (Dal)] see cross out, exclude
FUCK, ryu, rish, owl (to fuck), that (colloquial fam.).
Cross it out, cross it out. || trans. Destroy, liquidate. He decided, as they say, to “take it upon himself” and trash this story. Turgenev. [Derived from the ancient name of the letter x - “dick”, since two intersecting lines were drawn across the text being crossed out.]
cat eyes
XER, letter, see x at the beginning. Game of heriki, crosses, oniki. To delete a letter, to delete, (to delete), to cross or erase, to cross out. -sya, they suffer. His legs are crap, the opposite sex. wheel.
FUCK, see dick.
..this is the only thing that was found in Dahl's dictionary..
At school I had a wonderful Russian language teacher. One day in class she said the word “fuck.” After which she explained to the whole class that there was nothing obscene in this word. Word "fuck" comes from the name of the Cyrillic letter " dick", which is similar to a double strikethrough. Therefore, “throw away” means “cross out.”
By the way, it is believed that the name of the letter dick comes from the word "cherub". There was even a Russian language textbook in which the word “poherit” appears. This " Russian spelling"Academician Yakov Karlovich Grot, published in 1894.
The letter dick itself comes from the Greek letter hee. Due to some disagreements in ancient Greek, the same letter was sometimes read as xi. Now it's a Latin letter X. That is, our letter Ha and Latin letter X were once one letter.
In some languages with the Latin alphabet the letter X still reads like [x] - for example, in Spanish. Because of this, we get discrepancies in words Mexico City And Texas. This letter is also read, for example, in Azerbaijani (new Latin script). In other languages, it is read haphazardly (in English it is often read as [z], in French it is not readable at the end at all, in Chinese transcription it conveys a tricky letter similar to [s], and so on). Many languages do not use it at all - for example, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian and Esperanto.
Reviews
-
[…] Once again to the question about the letter dick. The letter X is called "shish" in Portuguese. […]
- tyomitch@livejournal
“The letter x itself comes from the Greek letter chi. Due to some disagreements in ancient Greek, the same letter was sometimes read as xi.”
So these are two different letters, chi and xi? And the Greek alphabet has both?
- Anonymous
- koziaff@livejournal
It’s quite clear why “dick” is not very “decent”: if now they say “fuck you...”, then they used to say (since the letter x was called dick) “fuck you...”, so it became an euphemism.
There is a funny word in the Russian language, which, although absolutely literary, is perceived by some people as indecent and almost obscene. This word" fuck". As I found out from V.V. Vinogradov’s book “The History of Words”, it comes from the name of the letter “X” (her) of the Church Slavonic alphabet. This letter did not immediately begin to be written as simplified as it is now, which is why it did not appear immediately its association with the cross and with crossing out (not earlier than from the 13th-14th centuries). cross out"with connotations of "destroy" or "mark" spread first in school, then in business and clerical language. In Leskov's "Councils" Deacon Achilla says: " Vladyka has made a consistory decision to order an investigation into the preaching to the Blues dick crossed out and secretly reassured everyone by appointing Father Savely to the position of clerk at the bishop’s house". Since the 17th century, the importance of “destroy”, “exclude from what is written”. The word is becoming very popular and has many forms that have not reached us. They said: screw up, screw up, screw up, screw up and even freak out!. In the 19th century it was actively used in literature. For example, in Turgenev’s story “Klara Milich”: “ ...he was tired of everything - and he decided... to trash this whole story...". In Leskov's essay "In Moscow": " What a pig, however, is this Rozanov: he, too, will certainly need to be fucked". And it’s especially delicious in Ostrovsky’s play “The Heart is Not a Stone”: " Take a piece of paper!... Screw it, screw it all!"
But that's not the most interesting thing. The most interesting thing is the origin of the name itself letters "dick". This word was a conventional abbreviation of the word "cherub".
One of the confirmations of this, as I understand it, is the text of the ABC Prayer, which was created with educational purpose even at the very dawn of the introduction of the Cyrillic alphabet (according to one version, even the Glagolitic alphabet). The prayer is an acrotext of 24 lines, each of which begins with the next letter of the church Cyrillic alphabet:
A With this word I pray to God:
B God, Creator of all creation,
IN visible and invisible,
X Give me thought and intelligence to the erubim.
.....................................
38 different copies of this prayer have been preserved. In some of them, the line starting with the letter "X" looks like this:
X Give us a thought and mind.
I don’t know exactly how Vinogradov himself represented this process of word transformation (I didn’t read the work, but only some excerpts from it), and how the author of the Cherubic theory Abicht represented it, but I imagine it like this. The word "cherubim" was formerly often used in the form "cherovim". So, there has been a change in the text of the prayer:
Kherubimskaya --> Kherubimskaya --> Kherubimskaya.
And perhaps because of the change in this educational text, the name of the letter has also changed. I suspect that the letter "X" was once called "cherub" in its entirety. So, if my conjectures about the thoughts of philologists are correct, if this transformation of the word had not occurred in prayer, we would now be saying not “poherit” with its rude connotation, but sublimely and almost heavenly - “cherubim.”
PS. I will make a small remark caused by reading the comments. I do not aim to whitewash the second meaning of the word that exists in the Russian language (not in the sense of the name of the letter), which was and remains indecent, although not obscene, because is a euphemism for the first letter of the famous swear words. To be more precise, the word is the same, but having absorbed the indecent meaning of the other one that it replaced, it seemed to be stratified into dirty new and clean old. Today the same process is happening with the word “horseradish”, but at least its basic meaning does not go out of use and does not become obsolete.
As for the word “screw”, there is no need to whitewash it, because... it has never been a curse word in the Russian language.
