To get into trouble is the direct meaning of the expression. What does the expression "Get in trouble" mean?
Any language can be compared to a river - flowing, changeable, sometimes shallow, sometimes full-flowing, but always alive. But one of the streams can go into the swamp. And so it happened with the word "prosak", which means today is not at all what our naive ancestors had in mind.
Get into trouble: the meaning of phraseology
This set expression is one of the most used - perhaps because the situation it describes is not so common:
- Be in an unfortunate position;
- Fail;
- Survive trouble;
- Fail the upcoming event;
- disgrace;
- Sit in a puddle, etc.
This expression describes a fiasco situation for the one to whom it is addressed. It has been used for over 300 years. Origin of the idiom associated with weaving for which our country has long been famous.
But in the last 10-15 years, an extraordinary linguistic transformation has taken place with phraseologism. She acquired such a dirty and toilet overtones that it could suffer the fate of the previously harmless “fuck” or “dick”.
Etymology of the idiom
Weaving strong ropes was learned in Rus' even before the adoption of Christianity. The art of spinning was so well developed among the people that even the armor of some warriors was woven from linen "braids".
Over the centuries, hemp spinning becomes one of the specializations of the Muscovite kingdom, and then Russian Empire. Without Russian hemp, it was impossible to imagine the English ships of that time.
The production technology was relatively simple and did not change much over the centuries:
- Collection of plant stems;
- Soaking for a long time - up to three years - time;
- Splitting up;
- The result should be strands, which were then subject to winding.
With the advent of the New Time, people increasingly began to use machines in spinning. One of them was called a prosak, which was a twist with many holes. Hemp strands were threaded through the holes, and through simple manipulations, a finished rope was made.
If the craftsman gaped, he could get into an awkward situation, being "in a hole" - between spinning threads.
Prosak in women
In 2005, one of the leading Russian directors Alexei Balabanov released the film "Blind Man's Buff". It is simple and understandable for target audience the language described the life of bandits in the 1990s.
The tape became a cultural phenomenon of its time and gained incredible popularity. The reasons for the success were as follows:
- Good cast;
- Competent directing;
- Interesting story;
- Spent dialogues;
- Support from the media: the comedy is periodically shown by the country's largest TV channels on holidays.
As a result, many quotes from the film's script have become catchphrases.
One of the linguistic pearls of the picture was the author's interpretation of the word "prosak". According to the hero Nikita Mikhalkov, this is nothing more than distance between two holes excretory system at a woman. According to the Internet, on average, this value ranges from three to five centimeters. The indicator depends on the individual anatomical features person.
"Zhmurki" was significantly inferior in its popular love to cult Soviet comedies. But even relative success was enough to start the process of the so-called secondary etymologization.
Consolidated or separate spelling?
Whether or not to put a space in this idiom means to determine what the element "in" is, a prefix or a preposition. The rules of the Russian language will help to understand this situation.
Continuous spelling is used in cases where adverbs are formed from such parts of speech as:
- Pronoun;
- Collective numeral (in the presence of prefixes denoting approach or attachment);
- Noun (if it has already fallen out of literary use and is obsolete);
- Adjective, in the presence of suffixes -а/о/у or -у;
- Created according to the scheme "adverb + prefix".
A space is also not put if the adverb has a chronological or spatial meaning.
The idiom under consideration falls under the third rule in this list and is in the company of words formed from archaisms, such as “to the ground”, “back home”, “in a hurry” or “against”.
Eventually correct writing‒ in a mess . Wrong choice (with separate spelling) continues to live and prosper on the Internet. According to the statistics of the Yandex search engine, the number of such incorrect requests is in the thousands per month.
What does it mean to be in trouble?
Thanks to the creation of Alexei Balabanov ("Blind Man's Buff") phraseology, almost forgotten, has gained a new, genital interpretation. A number of linguists put forward the theory that the director was still not the first to use the word in the meaning of "crotch":
- According to pop singer Alexander Rosenbaum, in this sense the idiom was known to the Don Cossacks. “To get into a mess” on a balachka means to sit on something hard or get a bruise between your legs;
- In the same sense, the expression is used by medical workers. Whether it was formed under the influence of mass film culture is rather difficult to answer;
- There is also information about the popularity of toilet value among the lower strata of society - mainly prisoners. The inhabitants of places not so remote have a habit of giving a hidden vulgar connotation to any word. Gradually, the vocabulary of the colonies conquered the speech of the lumpen, and then gradually began to penetrate into the communication of ordinary people.
Whether Balabanov is guilty or not, in modern Russian the expression has a different meaning from what it had some 20 years ago.
Not every person today knows what a drawdown is. What this word means today is extremely difficult to explain if there are children nearby. Although the hero of the scandalous film "Zhmurki" was not ashamed of this and interpreted it more than intelligibly. It remains to be hoped that genital vocabulary will fade into oblivion as quickly as the cheap popularity of black comedy.
Video: prosak according to Mikhalkov
In this video, the hero of N. Mikhalkov Sergey Mikhailovich from the movie "Blind Man's Buff" will tell you what, in his opinion, the word "prosak" means:
What means? Our life has a tendency to abruptly change its trajectory, sometimes rising to the very heights, and then suddenly falling into a tailspin. In fact, our existence on Earth is similar to a zebra, or rather its color, stripes of black and white flowers. Someone has more white, and some see only black shades of varying degrees of saturation all their lives. This means that a person quite often finds himself in difficult life circumstances, and cannot find a way out of the current situation. Today we will talk about a bad phenomenon, which for some reason the people called Get in in trouble, which means you can read a little lower. Be sure to add our actively developing website to your bookmarks, and we, in turn, will delight you with new interpretations of topical terms and expressions.
However, before continuing, I would like to advise you to familiarize yourself with a few more interesting phrases on the subject of phraseological units. For example, what does it mean to get into binding; the meaning of the expression sink into oblivion; how to understand The quieter you go, the further you will be; what does the phrase mean on the forehead, on the forehead, etc.
So let's continue what does it mean to get in a mess? Initially, this term meant rope machine", and the phrase itself had a specific meaning, to get into woven ropes that can cause serious injury.
Synonym for the expression Hit in a mess: give a blunder, screw up, sit in a puddle, be embarrassed, hit your face in the dirt, sit in a galosh, goof off.
Example:
Estimate, today the pants parted along the seam on the ass, walked like this at work all day, what a shame, I got into a mess, there's nothing to be done now.
prosak- this is a place between the vl @ gallery and @ nous (partition), at which during a sekas an awkward man gets in, trying to quickly dive into the wet depth
The word "badass" has its roots deep in the history of Russia. It takes its origins from the lexicon of rope craftsmen, as well as old Russian spinners.
It would seem, where does the slip and the ropes have to do with it, where is the connection here? It turns out that in order to make the simplest ropes, which at that time were in great demand in the fleet and not only, equipment was required. After all, you can’t manually weave hundreds of kilometers of hemp or flax.
For such a machine, a large area is needed, and therefore simple artisans installed this unit on the street. As a result, the whole yard turned out to be literally braided with thin ropes and threads stretching in different directions. Getting into this weave and getting confused was a fairly simple matter. That's why this work was very dangerous, because it was possible not only to get hurt, but also to lose one of the parts of your body. This most ancient machine was called "prosak", and to be in its "mechanism" meant "to get
Meaning of the word PROSAC in the Dahl Dictionary
PROSAC
husband. , Novg. , solid spinning mill; twisted, rope, rope camp, on which they twist, lower the ropes.
| * A predicament, poor thing, where you don't know what to do. He got into a mess, sits in a mess. Prosak (from twisting?), the space from the spinning wheel to the sleigh, where the whip scurries and spins, the rope descends; if you get there with the end of your clothes, with your hair, you will twist it and you won’t get out; from this proverb.
Dal. Dictionary Dahl. 2012
See also interpretations, synonyms, meanings of the word and what is PROSAK in Russian in dictionaries, encyclopedias and reference books:
- PROSAC in the New explanatory and derivational dictionary of the Russian language Efremova:
- PROSAC in the Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language Ushakov:
prosaka, m. (Region). Rope twisting machine. Get (s) into a mess (or a mess) (colloquial) - due to your oversight, be in an unpleasant, ... - PROSAC in the Explanatory Dictionary of Efremova:
prosak m local Twisting machine… - PROSAC in the New Dictionary of the Russian Language Efremova:
m. Twisting machine… - PROSAC in the Big Modern explanatory dictionary Russian language:
m. Twisting machine… - Blind Man's Blinds (FILM, 2005) at the Wiki Quote.
- SEMASIOLOGY V encyclopedic dictionary Brockhaus and Euphron:
(gram.) a department of the science of language, belonging to the least developed and considering the meaning of words and formal parts of a word (Greek ??????? = sign, ... - SEMASIOLOGY (GRAMM.) in the Encyclopedia of Brockhaus and Efron:
? a branch of the science of language, belonging to the least developed and considering the meaning of words and formal parts of a word (Greek ??????? = ... - GOOF in the Phraseology Handbook:
get into a difficult, awkward or funny situation. In trouble, according to some etymologists, it may be related to Sak, as well as German. Sackgasse … - CANE in the Dahl Dictionary:
waste a rope, twist, twist, lower strands, knot, twist, skip; double. Usage mistakenly, instead of growing, splicing the rope. Cane yarn, double, after ... - LEFT in the Dahl Dictionary:
adv. on the left side, on the left side, on the left side, opposite on right. Mountains on the left, lake on the right. Come in on the left. From right to left, salt, ...
In what hole did the simpleton fall?
He used to play funny tricks, He knew how to fool a fool And fool a smart one nicely, Or openly, or on the sly, Though other things didn’t pass him without science, Though sometimes he himself fell into a hole, like a simpleton.
A. S. Pushkin. Eugene Onegin
Expression goof - purely Russian, it is not even in closely related Ukrainian and Belarusian languages. And this is no coincidence: the word slippage , preserved in a prepositional phrase that has already become an adverb, is folk. It, according to the dictionary of V. I. Dahl, had a limited distribution in the last century - Novgorod and Tver dialects.
The great collector of words succinctly, but accurately, also describes what a slip is: “Slope (from knotting?), The space from the spinning wheel to the sleigh, where the whip scurries and spins, the rope descends; if you get there with the end of your clothes, with your hair, you will twist it and you won’t pull out; from this proverb.
The folk word got into our dictionaries quite early: it is recorded in the materials “The word and deed of the sovereign” by N. Novombergsky in 1718, the Weisman Lexicon in 1731 and academic dictionaries since 1847. For quite a long time it was reflected in the letter in the same way as in Pushkin, - in the form of a phrase. And it is characteristic that dictionaries register the figurative meaning of our prosak more than its direct meaning- "spinning, rope loom". This is understandable, because the phraseologism, thanks to the writers of the 18th and 19th centuries, who launched this turnover in literature, turned out to be more popular and widespread than the little-known name of the village machine.
The unknown attracts. That is why the etymology of V. I. Dahl is constantly popularized by a variety of linguists and writers (Ermakov 1894.43; Derzhavin 1947, 42; Razumov 1957.218; Skvortsov 19 (56, 84-85; Bukhareva 1983, 7, etc.). No one, however, wrote, perhaps, such an ethnographically accurate and plastic picture of falling into a village clearing as S. V. Maksimov:
“Walking around holy Rus', I wanted to go where I had not been, and this time - on the Upper Volga. With special eagerness and with great joy I reached the venerable city of Rzhev, venerable mainly in its antiquity and in its varied industrial and commercial vitality... a whole weaving of ropes, like a basis on a weaving mill. It seems that you can’t figure it out in this rope labyrinth, although you see that a living person is tied to each, and the ends of the others hang on the hooks of the gallows (i.e., pillars with crossbars with iron hooks screwed into flyers - parts of a prosak. - V. M .).
How many people, so many new threads, and the same number of old threads, hung from the sides and over their heads every hour. Indeed, it is difficult to understand here, but to get tangled even on one rope - God forbid any villain, because this is the real troubled "slump", that is, this whole spinning mill or rope mill - the whole space from the spinning wheel to the sleigh, where the rope descends, scurries, twists and turns the twine. Everything that our eye sees in the yard - both stretched out in the air, fixed on hooks, and spun from chests and stomachs - all spinning rope tackle and a rope camp bears the ancient and so famous name "prosak". Here, if one hair pleases to get into the "bunch" or "bunch" on any rope, then it will take away all the fair-haired curls and the beaver beard so that you lose something, and in the beaten place only the scar will remain as a memory. Whoever gets hit with a hollow caftan or shirt, the entire lower camp of his clothes is torn off until they stop a stupid horse and a helpful wheel. Walk - don't yawn! Laughing, push your neighbor with your shoulder, for the sake of fun and jokes, and with great caution, otherwise trouble will twist - you won’t get out, you’ll sit in the holes - you won’t be good ”(Maksimov 1955, 12-17).
The etymology of V. I. Dahl and S. V. Maksimov is one of the few phraseological versions that is practically not disputed by anyone. Historians of the language only corrected the word-formation basis: unlike Dahl, prosak is now associated not with the verb to knot (which was also called into question by the author of the dictionary himself), but with the word sak (Goryaev 1896.310; Vasmer 1.360; ESRYaI, issue 3.188) . The attempt of the Italian etymologist V. Pisani to connect the prosak with the verb to ask is obviously unsuccessful (Fasmer I, 360). Unsuccessful because, firstly, in our language there is no independent formation from this verb to -ak (usually they are formed from a nominal or adjective stem: tramp, poor man, fool, worm, etc.), and secondly, as we will see below, the connection he assumes with the verb to ask contradicts the whole logic of the functioning and development of the phraseological unit to get into trouble.
And this logic is the logic of the phraseological model "to fall into a trap" = "to be in a difficult, hopeless situation". According to it, countless phraseological units have been formed both in Slavic and non-Slavic languages: to fall like a mouse into a mousetrap, to fall like a catfish into the top, Ukr. get into the force, white. fall at a pruglo, etc. It is also important that this general model can be concretized in Russian dialects in such a way that some kind of tool of production turns out to be a trap: to get into the pincers, to get sluggish, to get into the crush, to get into the grind "in strict hands", "in trouble", "under oppression" (Dal II, 375); you have not yet been in a slump (PPZ, 99); introduce into the base (from the camp) "in a bad deed" (Dal II, 701); sib. get on a tight fit (i.e., the detail is crossed. - Bukhareva 1983, 8); vyat. to get into kolts (SRNG 14, 197 - cf. koltok "rod", bonfire, stab "a hand tool for threshing flax in the form of a curved stick"; Novg., Volog., Vlad, stab "oil-churning mortar pestle"), etc. .
Much is given to confirm the traditional interpretation of our expression of observation of its dynamics. The main trend of its development is typical for phraseology, which contains the so-called "necroticisms" - obsolete or narrowly dialect words. At first, while there was still at least a nominal connection with the prosak "rope machine", this expression varied. In Dahl, for example, in addition to having fallen into a hole, it is fixed and sitting in the holes, which, as we have seen, is also used in the essay by S. V. Maksimov.
This expression was especially active in literary language 18th century The writers of that time actively varied it. The verb component was subjected to fairly wide replacements - in addition to get, the verbs were used to get caught, get caught, transgress, enter, etc .:
“However, as smart, perspicacious and experienced people, in order not to somehow get into a trouble and not get in the way, they considered ... to proclaim an emergency meeting in all yards and houses” (V. Berezaisky. Anecdotes of the ancient Poshekhonians);
“Toisenkov: However ... in all actions, slow determination is also needed: you will not fall into trouble so soon” (E. Dashkova. Toisenkov);
“Venus, hearing that, laughed with cold laughter through her teeth ... It was not necessary to agree So as not to transgress Before Jupiter into a hole” (N. Osipov. Virgilieva Eneida, turned inside out);
Dunya: No; I don’t want to say that: I’m annoyed that they brought me into such a mess that the lady scolded me ”(P. Baturin. Conspiracy).
In the last expression, the preposition from the prosak is already separated by the pronoun such. More precisely, not already separated, but still separated, for this is evidence of rigid phraseological knots that have not yet begun. Examples of this kind are given in the books of M. F. Palevskaya. They testify both to the gradual consolidation of the term drawdown figurative meaning, and about the gradual "thickening" of the phrase to get into a mess into a single whole. It must be emphasized that it did not immediately become an adverb in a mess. Until now, the possibility of splitting the latter into a preposition and a noun exists. And it was used and used by the masters of the word:
“How could an experienced journalist get into such a mess” (V. Veresaev. Non-fictional stories); “We got into a hopeless hole” (S. Baruzdin. Dog).
Such use, as I. V. Dubinsky correctly noted, is no longer the realization of the original, real image of turnover, but only the isolation of a figurative meaning from a ready-made combination.
The trend towards normative usage has now led to what has been legitimized as an adverb. If even in the 17-volume academic dictionary, even under the article in a mess, this turnover is printed twice in a separate form and only once - as an adverb, in addition, the word failure is generally presented as a separate one - with illustrations "get into the saddest failure" and "fall into a decent mess”, then the second edition of the Small Academic Dictionary gives it strictly normatively, without variations: to get into a mess. And without reference to this adverb in the volume with the letter "P".
So the academic tradition put an end to the independence of the former folk term prosak. And now only the most courageous experimenters of the word rescue him from time to time from a tight phraseological gap. They are allowed to somewhat revive this necroticism, which has lost its meaning from phraseological bondage.
The next visiting meeting of a circle of lovers of Russian literature took place on the banks of the Volga in the ancient city of Kozmodemyansk, which entered the treasury of world literature under the name. The reason for the analysis was the expression "goof". With the meaning of this expression, no one has any problems: to get into a mess - due to your oversight, find yourself in an unpleasant, awkward, disadvantageous position.
But where did this expression come from?
In general, the word "trap" used to be written separately: "trap." Such a spelling, for example, we find in Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin":
Though sometimes he himself is in trouble
He came across as a simpleton.
What is a slip? Prosak is a machine for twisting ropes. It consisted of a mechanism with a handle and hooks, for which thin ropes were attached. The other end of the ropes was fastened to the sled, which stood at a considerable distance, determined by the length of the rope. When the handle was rotated, thicker ropes were woven from thin ropes or threads, so even ropes could be made.
When working or moving around the machine, one had to be careful, if clothes or a long beard got into the machine, that is, “into a hole”, it would be difficult to get out. Getting into a hole was very unpleasant and even fraught with injuries. 
Prosak - a machine for twisting ropes. , Mari El Republic.
Over time, the word "trap" became an adverb, combining a preposition and a noun, and the expression "trap" itself became a phraseological unit that we often use. Now you know the origin of this word. 
If someone is interested in the principle of operation of the machine, then here is a short video:
The machine is different, but the principle of operation is the same. Scale.
I note that there is another vulgar attempt to explain the origin of the word "badass", it is she who is voiced in Balabanov's film "Blind Man's Blind" by Nikita Sergeevich Mikhalkov. It is even strange that someone perceives this genital humor at face value. From about 00:48.
Of course, the film version is just a fiction, designed for the most marginal audience.
Good luck to all! Don't get in trouble!