The transition of proper names into common nouns. Proper and common nouns

Thus, the ability of proper names to turn into common nouns is a “historical” ability. However, the "historicity" of such a transition is very relative, because history is sometimes taking place before our eyes. The popularity of the name instantly makes it symbolic. It happens that Yashin misses balls; Why are you walking like Oleg Popov in the circus arena - such Ukrainian sayings were recorded by a phraseologist from Kyiv L. G. Skripnik. Russian football player and clown once became part of Ukrainian phraseological history.

Parodist writers turn a proper name into a common noun even faster. Here, for example, is a parody by B. Kezhun, in which a stream of new Russian verbs falls upon the reader:

You can one way or another

Dig your poems -

Martinit, evtushenit, parsnip,

Silence, rudermanit, slutskovat!

I'm everything, my son, I can let you!

You can, in short,

To growl, nameless, antagonize,

Helemic, distill, inberate!..

"My Brown Pegasus"

Poetry lovers can easily recognize the names of Soviet poets in these verbs. New words born as a joke are understandable to us precisely because the principle of the transition of a proper name into a common noun is the same here: before forming verbs from surnames, the poet made them a generalized symbol of poetic handwriting, manner of writing poetry, addiction to certain topics. The history of the common noun here is much shorter than what usually happens in the language, but it is a story nonetheless.

Passing in a circle a common noun → proper name → common noun, etc., nouns enter into various connections with other words. The more stable these connections are, the closer the combination is to figurative turnover.

This can be seen in the example of everyone familiar from childhood with Koshchei the Immortal and Baba Yaga. Koschey lives in his underground kingdom, in a palace built from a “carbuncle-stone”, and is not afraid of death. It is no coincidence that his constant epithet is the word immortal: because his soul is hidden in a duck egg, which can only be obtained by a fabulous hero. Koshchei's stinginess has become proverbial just like his immortality: Mikhail Zotych was stingy, like Koschey,- writes Mamin-Sibiryak, - and kept the soldier starving("Bread"). This name as part of a phraseological unit can thus symbolize two negative qualities at once. The third characteristic of Koshchei, not reflected in the phraseology, is his thinness: They call their master a koshchei for his thinness, stoop and quarrelsomeness.(F. Gladkov. Oath). For F. Gladkov koschey, as we see, it is no longer a proper name, but a common noun.

Thinness and stoop seem to us the most natural features of Koshchei: after all, his name is so similar to the words bone, bony etc. All Russian etymological dictionaries also point to this connection. It turns out that the primary meaning of this name is "scrawny old man."

Somewhat peculiarly connected the name Koshcheya With bone ethnographer L.V. Loshevsky, who saw in this name a whole complex of mythical symbols. “The role of kidnappers or captors of the sun in our fairy tales,” he wrote, “is played by clouds personified in the form of Koshchei; just as the clouds darken the sun and in this way, as it were, abduct him, so Koschei takes the red maiden - the sun to his possessions and separates her from her beloved - the earth, with whom she entered into a fruitful union. Based already and on the fact that the very name Koschey must come from the word bone, where does the verb come from ossify that is, to freeze, to make it hard as a bone ... it should be accepted that Koschei, the kidnapper of the red maiden-sun, personifies the winter clouds, which at this time of the year, as if dug in by cold, do not give rain and obscure the sun, due to why the earth itself becomes numb in anguish from separation from its beloved ... "

And such a "poetic" and prosaic juxtaposition Koshcheya or Koshcheya with a bone raises doubts. It seems strange that the name of such an unpleasant creature does not contain a negative characteristic; after all, the ancient names were usually "speaking."

Already this doubt makes us return to the non-traditional etymology of the name Koshcheya proposed by Academician A. A. Sobolevsky, who connects it with the verb bone"to scold" (cf. bonfire). It is characteristic that it is this comparison that helps to combine two Russian words - koschey and blasphemer. The latter has the meaning "mockery, scolder" and forms other words: blasphemy, blaspheme etc. The etymologist is separated by these two words, linking only blasphemer With bone"scold". Meaning of words bone and cast in the Slavic languages ​​and dialects, however, it is wider: as Academician V. V. Vinogradov showed, they mean not only "blame, vilify", but also "spoil, harm". Wed Polish kazic "to spoil", Czech kazit with the same meaning, Russian leprosy etc. This meaning is still preserved in the literary language: the word dirty trick- "intentional harm caused to someone." The connection with this ancient root better clarifies the inner essence of Koshchei than a comparison with a bone: after all, in all fairy tales, this old miser only does what he “bones” - he does dirty tricks to goodies. Baba Yaga is related to Koshchei not only by the folk epithet “bone leg”, which causes a direct association with death. The character of this ugly old woman, who loves night walks in a mortar and covers her tracks with a broomstick, matches the character of the dirty trick Koshchei. Baba Yaga,Yaga Bura,Yaga Bova,Oga Bova,Yagaya baba- so the inhabitants of Russian villages call it. This name is common Slavic: Slovaks call their Baba Yaga Yaga Baba and Lie down woman, Czechs - Hedgehog Baba and Yezinka, Poles - endza, Endzina. The root of this name means "evil, vile. It is known not only to Slavic languages, but also to Latvian, Lithuanian, Gothic, ancient Indian ... This is how ancient the root of evil, stored for centuries in this name, and how consonant it is with the inner meaning of the word Koschey.

A proper name, entering into a phraseological turn, takes a decisive step towards a common noun. Specific, individual features of the name recede into the background. It acquires the ability to generalize.

The name of the Tatar Khan Mamai is known to every Russian. The defeat of his horde by the troops of Dmitry Donskoy in 1380 ended the Tatar-Mongol yoke in Russia. However, using the expression Mamai fought, the White Sea storyteller Taisiya Ivanovna Makhileva clearly does not mean this historical event: I went into the hut, duck fathers, there Mamai fought: every place was laid - kvass and beech, and all of a sudden. Here it means "big mess". In the same sense, one of the heroines of Gorky's play "Children of the Sun" uses a stable comparison with this name: How Mamai walked through the house ... come on, look. Everything is scattered, dissolved ... Close to the common noun Mamai and in the Russian proverb And Mamai did not eat the truth.

If you try to generalize the complex of common associations that the name Mamaia evokes in these phraseological units, then you get something like "a rude and impudent person who makes a mess." It is curious that this "Russian" meaning is very close to its Tatar common noun interpretation: the word mother in Turkic languages ​​it means "a monster that frightens children."

Another Tatar "hero" of Russian folklore received no less "flattering" characterization - Kalin-king. Epic storytellers constantly add a series of unflattering epithets to his name:

The thief-dog rose up and the villain Kalin-tsar

Yes, ours is good, yes, on the pillar of Kyiv-grad

He is three years, a dog, yes, three months,

He did not reach the city to Kyiv.

This is the beginning of the Kama Battle epic. In none of the epics you will meet this name without an epithet dog. Therefore, we can talk about a stable folklore stamp - dog Kalin-tsar. If we decipher the Tatar name, then this triple nickname will become even more offensive: after all, in the Turkic languages ​​the word viburnum means "fat, fat, stupid" ... Well, the king is a fat and stupid dog!

Why don't we decipher the common noun at the same time tsar, since we took on the ancient rulers? Now you will no longer be surprised to learn that in fact it turned out to be its own name.

“Well, if this is a name, then surely some Russian tsar,” you say. After all, even the French, English and Germans borrowed this word from our language: tsar, tsar, Zar. And the very concept of "king" is somehow difficult to tear off from tsarist Russia.

Nevertheless, for the nominal basis of this word, one will have to go to the Roman Empire. Word tsar associated with the name of Gaius Julius Caesar (100-44 BC) - the most powerful commander and dictator of Ancient Rome. He also owns many winged words transmitted from one language to another. It was he who exclaimed "The die is cast!" at the crossing of the Rubicon River, which was the beginning of the civil war, culminating in the proclamation of the dictatorship of Caesar. It is no coincidence that the expression Die is cast and Rubicon crossed still mean that the final decision has been made, there is no turning back. Julius Caesar - author of the aphorism I came, I saw, I conquered. These words, according to historians, were written on a board that was carried during the triumphant return of the dictator to Rome after the victory over the Pontic king Pharnaces. Better to be first in the country than second in the city- a saying also belonging to Caesar.

Caesar craved glory, and he got it. But he hardly suspected that his glorious name, having become a symbol of royal power, would be so distorted in the languages ​​of the barbarians. Originally it sounded like "kesar" (Caesar). In Church Slavonic aphorism Render what is Caesar's to Caesar, and what is God's to God we will find a word close to this Latin fundamental principle. Already here is the word Caesar used as a common noun: this gospel phrase is Jesus' answer to the messengers of the Pharisees, who asked him whether taxes should be paid to Caesar, i.e. with. the Roman emperor.

The centuries and patterns of languages, in which the name of Caesar fell, changed it, giving it a national sound: German Kaiser and Czech cisarzh, Upper Lusatian keyjor and Turkish hour"Austrian emperor", Latvian kiezar and Hungarian tsasar. Russian tsar - one of such phonetic metamorphoses. Church Slavonic Caesar turned into ancient tssar and further into tsar.

The shape of the elephant changed, but the nominal meaning of the name of the Roman dictator remained the same as two thousand years ago. Similar stories happened with the names of other ancient rulers. So, the name of the legendary ruler of the island of Crete, Minos, became the title of the Cretan Mycenaean kings - minos, and the name of Charlemagne (Latin Carolus), king of the Frankish Empire and Roman emperor, became synonymous with the word king of Slavs: Russian king, Czech kral, Polish krol.

Similar information.

The words of any language are heterogeneous, heterogeneous and the objects they call. The specificity of the subject leaves an imprint on the nature of the common noun and proper name used to designate it. Names of different types, which serve as designations for various objects, form a wide scale of imperceptibly passing into each other patterns. Despite the similarity of adjacent lexical groups, one characteristic division can be traced quite clearly - the division into common nouns and proper nouns.

A common noun correlates the named object or group of objects with a class, has a main connotation (connection with a concept) and may have additional connotations. A generically named object is undefined and unbounded.

A proper name is associated not with a class, but with an individual object (which may consist of a certain set of parts, but all of them as a whole are perceived as a unity) or even with several objects of the same name, each of which is perceived individually. A proper name is unrelated to a concept (has no main connotation, but may have collateral connotations), but may have collateral connotations (in which the named object is fairly well known). If any of the side connotations develops into the main one, the proper name turns into a common noun. An object called by its own name is always defined and concrete.

If the specificity of the named object becomes unobvious, there is a tendency for the proper name to turn into karma.

Proper names are an inexhaustible reserve for terms and nomenclatural words, since with their help the concretization and clarification of more general concepts and provisions is achieved: the Pythagorean theorem, Newton's law, Bekhterev's tablets, London drops, Viennese drink, Bertolet's salt, Eustachian tube, etc. P.

Although all these cases serve to determine the varieties of scientific laws; compounds of various substances, in the first group of examples, the correlation with the personality of the researcher or inventor is incomparably stronger, as evidenced by the capital letter. In subsequent groups, this relationship is much weaker. The minimum relatedness is observed in cases such as pendant, ampere, volt, newton, angstreng, when the name of the researcher and the term turn into homonyms that have diverged into different fields, when people who use one homonym may not know the second.

Possibility of univerbization: tablets according to Bekhterev - ankylosing spondylitis, Bertolet's salt - Bertoletka contributes to the separation of the nomenclature word (or term) from the name-eponym.

A complete transition of proper names into common nouns is possible: an ampere is a unit of current strength, a boycott is a method of struggle, when an ominimic noun completely breaks away from its own (Ampere, Boycott) that gave rise to it and becomes its homonym - and a situational transition: He is a modern Shakespeare. Here the proper name is invoked in order of comparison.

Since verbs, adjectives and adverbs are always conceptual, the formation of these parts of speech from proper names indicates a complete appeal of nominal stems. Such words as tolstolstvovat, beacon, Yesenin, Turgenev, in Gogol. They contain a certain set of encyclopedic information related to the lifestyle or creative manner of the person on whose behalf the words are formed, because only after certain typical properties are abstracted can they form concepts.

Connotation, the creation of an image and the potential for transition to common nouns arise in proper names in cases where:

The denotation of the name acquires sufficient fame among all members in the surveyed language community who have received a certain general minimum of upbringing and education;

The name ceases to be associated with one more or less definite denotation and becomes typical for many similar people, settlements, rivers, etc. Typicality is manifested both in the lexical content of homonymous bases and in the models of names: in Chekhov: Anna, Navra, Pelani are perceived as Russian peasant women; Fritz, Hans - were connoted during the Second World War as German soldiers; Mimi, Zizi - typical names of Russian noblewomen in pre-revolutionary times.

When a proper name turns into a common noun, it is filled with a new meaning, which now correlates with the typical activity of the named, with the typical products manufactured by this person in the given area.

During the transition, the scope of application expands: the patron is a "generous patron of the arts." The scope of application expands to the extreme in cases of transferring the names of persons to the names of some animals, birds, plants: martyn (bird), ivan-da-marya (flower).

Situational transition may not lead to the creation of a common clear concept. At the same time, with any transition of a proper name into a common noun, the specificity of the object is lost, it is not a specific individual, but a certain set of objects that are singled out and combined according to one or another common property.

Potentially, the transition to common nouns is characteristic of all names with wide popularity: “After all, they, new settlers, usually take the rap for the sins of sweet-talking fausts from some construction organizations and timid Gretchen from architectural control bodies.”

The lowercase letter in the names of Fausts and Gretchen testifies to the attitude towards them as quite common names.

The names of cities and other geographical objects, turning into common nouns, usually acquire the most general meaning: “big city”, “provincial city”, “big river”, etc.

“On the slope of the equator / From Chicago / through the Tambovs / rubles are rolling (Mayakovsky V.V. “Man”).

The main thing for a proper name is the individuality of the act of nomination and the attachment of a name to an object, which does not exclude the possibility of naming different objects by the same names (two Oka rivers: in the European part of Russia in Siberia, and on the other hand, naming the same objects differently (twins are called different names, despite the fact that they are similar to each other; villages, cafes, theaters built according to the same type receive different names).This, in turn, allows the use of proper names in the plural when there are more than one real bearers of the name (in our group 5 Yul).

The onomastic theorist Gardiner considers the surnames and generic dynastic names used in the plural to be common nouns, and considers them a fact of speech, not language. Common nouns for him are John, Mary. “Although the Romanovs are more familiar in the plural than in the singular,” he refers this case to common proper names - common nouns.

L.V. Shcherba wrote the following: “Proper names, as a rule, are not used in the plural. Ivanovs, Krestovskys, etc. are genus names and represent a kind of pluralia tantum.

Family naming is a special category of group anthroponyms that serves to designate the smallest social cells that make up human society. It is the social orientation of these names that leads to the fact that, turning into common nouns, they become symbols of certain strata of society; “The Artamonov Case”, “Days of the Turbins”, where the Artamonovs, Turbins denote the social-collective: “Russian merchants”, “Russian pre-revolutionary officers”.

In the language there is a constant exchange, almost an interaction between common nouns and proper names. This contributes to the enrichment of the vocabulary of the language. N.V. Yushmanov outlined several lines along which the common nouns of proper names develop:

a) face - face: hercules in the meaning of "strong man"

b) person - thing: mac in the meaning of "cloak"

c) place - thing: Bordeaux in the meaning of "wine"

d) person - action: boycott in the meaning of "termination of relations"

e) locality - action: panash in the meaning of "deception"

f) face - unit of measure: ampere, pendant, angstrom

g) locality - place: Kamchatka in the meaning of "remote place"

h) person - place: penates in the meaning of "home".

German male name;

The contemptuous name of a soldier of the fascist army. When our troops approach, the Hans will not be well.

The name of the French king (Bourbon dynasty)

Rude man. He turned out to be a real Bourbon.

Resort (own) - Come to Borjomi!

Healing water. "Borjomi" will heal you from many diseases.

City name. Have you been to Berlin?

Covered stroller. The Berlin crew consisted of six people.

The name of the inventor Babbit.

Word Metal Fusion with Stranded.

River. Cupid is threatened with pollution.

Fish of the cyprinid family found in the Amur. Fried cupid will appeal to any gourmet.

The name of the inventor.

Razor of a special device (named after the inventor). "Vest" - there is no better for a man!

The Russian term "common" was formed from the Old Slavonic word call- "call". In the first grammar of the 17th century, Meletius Smotrytsky designated "nominal, ordinary, ordinary" nouns. The word "naritati" in turn came from "ritzat" - to speak, and this word was formed from the ancient Slavic word "speech". Very often in old scrolls there is a phrase "I river", i.e. "I speak". Common nouns are generalized names of homogeneous objects. For example: student, teacher, ghost, entity, flower, tree etc.

The word "own" comes from the Old Slavonic property, which means "one's own", "personal", "belonging to oneself", as well as "feature, person". A proper name is a second name given to an object to distinguish it from another similar object.

1. August is the eighth month of the Gregorian calendar. It got its real name in honor of the Roman emperor Octavian Augustus (63 BC - 14 AD), after whom the Roman Senate named the month, especially happy in the life of the emperor (Cleopatra died this month).

2. Accordion- music. the instrument was named after the Slavic storyteller Bayan (Boyan).

3. Boycott- on behalf of the manager of an Irish principality, Charles Boycott, who was distinguished by particular severity; for this, everyone turned away from him.

4. Bolivar- wide-brimmed hat of the XIX century. Named in honor of Simon Bolivar (1783-1830), leader of the struggle for the independence of the Spanish colonies in South. America. Liberated Venezuela from Spanish domination, Nov. Granada. “Having put on a wide bolivar, Onegin goes to the boulevard ...”(A.S. Pushkin, "Eugene Onegin").

5. Whatman- the type of paper is named after the English industrialist of the 18th century. J. Whatman.

6. Watt- a unit of power, named after the Scotch-Irish inventor-mechanic James Watt (Watt), the creator of the universal steam engine.

7. riding breeches- Trousers of a special cut were named after the French cavalry general Halifet.

8. Guillotine- On January 21, 1790, the French doctor J. Guillotin presented his main invention - the guillotine - a tool for carrying out executions (beheading convicts), introduced during the French Revolution.

25. Pullman - (Pullman), George, inventor of sleeping cars, 1831-1897, founder of the Carriage Society in Chicago. Pullman built wagons that starred in westerns and were considered palaces on wheels. The very word "Pullman" ("Pullman"), thanks to this, acquired its meaning - the car is extremely comfortable.

26.X-ray - a common spelling in Russian of the name of the German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen, who discovered X-rays.

27. Saxophone- the Belgian master Sachs gave the name to the popular wind instrument.

28. french- military jacket in the waist, with four large pockets on the chest and on the sides and a tab at the back. This jacket was worn by John Denton French, who commanded the British Expeditionary Forces in France during the First World War.

29. Celsius- degrees Celsius is named after the Swedish scientist Anders Celsius, who in 1742 proposed a new scale for measuring temperature.

There are words that we use automatically in our speech, without thinking about the fact that some of them owe their origin to specific people. Of course, everyone knows that the months July and August named after emperors, lettuce Russian salad bears the name of its creator. Here, to that category of words, some units of measurement can also be attributed, for example: volt, ampere etc.

There are many such words. For example, a shirt hoody is most directly related to the great writer - in many photographs, Lev Nikolaevich is depicted in a tight shirt. Many of his followers, who called themselves the writer's students and called themselves Tolstoyians, wishing to emphasize their closeness to him, often appeared in shirts similar to those worn by Leo Tolstoy. So the loose shirt became known as sweatshirt.

Word hooligan- of English origin. It is believed that the surname Houlihan was once worn by the famous London brawler, who brought a lot of trouble to the inhabitants of the city and the police. The Oxford Dictionary dates the frequent appearance of this Mr's name in police reports to 1898. The surname has become a household name, and the word is international, characterizing a person who grossly violates public order.

But what, according to some sources, is the history of the origin of the word academy. The philosopher Plato often expounded his teachings in a shady grove near Athens. According to legend, the Attic hero Akadem was buried in this grove. Therefore, the grove was called the Academy. Word first academy became the name of the school of Plato, and later - a certain type of educational institution and community of scientists.

Interesting origin of the word boycott. In the 19th century, an English earl hired a steward named Charles Cunningham Boycott for his estate in Ireland. Boycott was a harsh man, often punishing peasants and farmers, which aroused hatred on their part. People who heard about his cruelty refused to have anything to do with him, avoided communication with him. Since then, the punishment of a person by complete isolation has been called boycott.

Word mausoleum also has its own history. In 352 BC In the city of Halicarnassus (Asia Minor), King Mausolus died. According to the custom of those times, the corpse of the king was burned, and the ashes were placed in a funeral urn. According to one of the legends that have come down to us, his widow Artemisia decided to build a huge tomb and thereby perpetuate the memory of her husband, whom she loved very much. Well-known masters were involved in the construction and decoration of the structure, including the court sculptor of Alexander the Great Leohar. The tomb was as high as a ten-story building. At the top stood a gigantic statue of the Mausoleum. The tomb of Halicarnassus was named mausoleum and ranked among the seven ancient wonders of the world. ( From various etymological dictionaries and reference books).

Sometimes items get their names from the place where they were taken from: coffee(from the name of the country Kaffa, located in Africa), peach(from the name Persia - modern Iran), orange(The Dutch word appelsien literally translates as "Chinese apple"). Word pants comes from the name of the Dutch city of Bruges.

One of the ancient legends tells about the handsome young man Narcissus, who was so in love with himself that he did not notice anyone or anything around, but all the time looked at his reflection in the water. The gods, angry, turned him into a plant. White flower daffodil leans to one side and seems to be looking down at his reflection with a yellow eye. Such plant names are also associated with ancient mythology, such as cypress and hyacinth.

Once, the son of King Keos and friend of Apollo, Cypress accidentally killed a deer while hunting - his favorite and the favorite of all the inhabitants. The inconsolable young man asked Apollo to give him eternal sadness, and God turned him into a slender tree cypress(since then, the Greeks began to hang a cypress branch at the door of the house where the deceased is). Beautiful (usually bright red) flower hyacinth named after the son of the king of Sparta, Hyacinth, who died during a discus throwing competition. Flower of sorrow hyacinth grew from the blood of Hyacinth.

One of the Slavic alphabets is called Cyrillic(by the name of one of its creators - Cyril); many names of literary movements go back to proper names: Byron - Byronism, Karamzin - Karamzinism, Petrarch - petrarchism... Adventure-rich wanderings or woeful wanderings we call odyssey(Odysseus - the mythical king of Ithaca, the hero of the Trojan War), the adventures of a hero-traveler, devoid of human society - robinsonade(Robinson is the hero of Defoe's novel "Robinson Crusoe").

Quite often, common nouns go back to the names of famous scientists and inventors. Here are some: ampere(after the French physicist Ampère), watt(named after the English physicist Watt), volt(named after the Italian physicist Volta) ... The French cavalry general Galliffet invented trousers of a special cut - riding breeches, Scottish chemist Mackintosh - waterproof raincoat mac.. Colt, Maxim, Mauser, Nagant famous inventors of weapons. The Belgian master Sachs gave the name to the popular wind instrument - saxophone.

ALL-RUSSIAN COMPETITION OF STUDENT REPORTS "Krugozor"

TRANSITION OF OWN NOUNS INTO COMMONS

1. An interesting science of onomastics………………………………………….....3

2. The transition of proper names to common nouns…………………...………7

2.1 Proper names - parents of common nouns……………….……7

2.2 The transition of proper names to common nouns in cooking ... ....... 9

2.3 Transition of proper names into common nouns in units of measurement and measuring instruments…………………………..……………12

2.4 The transition of proper names to common nouns in the names of chemical elements of the periodic table…………………………….......13

2.5 The transition of proper names to common nouns in botany…….....16

2.6 The transition of proper names into common nouns in the name of weapons…………………………………………………………………………...18

2.7 The transition of proper names into common nouns in the name of clothing…………………………………………………………………………..19

2.8 The transition of proper names to common nouns in the attributes of school life………………………………………………………………..21

3. Proper names and character of a person………………………………..22

4.Conclusion…………………………………..……………………………..26

5. References………………………………………………………..28

1. Interesting science of onomastics

Let's try to answer the question: "How many geographical objects and geographical names are there on planet Earth?" Difficult. And it is not surprising, since their number cannot be counted: after all, there are a huge number of cities on our planet, and even more villages and villages that have names. In settlements there are squares, streets, alleys, which also have their own name. Numerous rivers, lakes, mountains, ravines, forests, groves are not nameless either. No, it is impossible to count all geographical names! It's easier to take some small country with a sparse population, such as Sweden, and try to count geographical names on its territory. The scientists did just that. It turned out that there are 12 million place names in Sweden alone!

And how many names and surnames are there in the world? If we take into account that more than five billion people now live on Earth and some part of the names are repeated in each country, it is easy to calculate that there will be about 4 billion names in total.

Is it good or bad when in one country there are many identical names for cities, streets, people? On the one hand, it seems to be good: you need to memorize less names, and on the other hand, it’s bad, because in this case it will be difficult to find the right object. After all, name bearers are separate, different objects that have nothing in common with each other.

“Imagine for a moment that all geographical names have disappeared from our planet - cities, villages, rivers, seas, mountains, countries, streets. All postal work stopped immediately. Fire engines and ambulances rush about in vain searches - there are no addresses. Transport is paralyzed: no one knows where he is going, where to transfer, and where to get off; cargo instead of Moscow go to Novgorod. The world economy has collapsed, humanity has been thrown back to a primitive state. And all because of such a trifle as names,” writes in the book “Introduction to toponymy”.

It is impossible to remove the names, because they are firmly connected with the life of modern society. The most that can be done is to replace one name with another.

So, for example, the city of Petersburg, named after its founder Peter the Great, was called Petrograd during the years of the October Socialist Revolution. Subsequently, it was renamed the city of Leningrad, named after the famous organizer and leader of the October Revolution. In the mid-90s of the 20th century, the city returned to its former name with the addition of the particle saint-, i.e. it began to be called St. Petersburg. So, for example, the city of Tsaritsyn was renamed Stalingrad, after the Great Patriotic War the city began to be called Volgograd.

Cases of repeated changes in the names of large geographical objects are rare. Just as an unjustified change in the names of geographical objects is undesirable, so is it undesirable (with rare exceptions) to change the names and surnames of persons. It is not difficult to guess what confusion mass name changes can lead to.

Proper names have long attracted the attention of scientists. Their origin, history, various transformations, distribution, purpose are studied by historians, literary critics, psychologists, ethnographers, geographers, but most of all - by linguists.

In linguistics, a special section is distinguished - onomastics (Greek, onomastike - "the art of giving names"; onomastikos - "related to the name"), which deals with the study of proper names. Onomastics is also called the totality of all proper names. These include personal names, patronymics, surnames, nicknames of people, nicknames of animals, names of cities, rivers, seas, natural disasters, celestial bodies, etc.

Proper names relating to people are called anthroponyms, and the science that studies them is anthroponymics (from Gr. anthropos - “man” and oputa - “name”). Geographical names - toponyms - are dealt with by toponymy (Greek topos - "place, area" and oputa - "name").

Toponyms and anthroponyms are mostly nouns that serve as the names of single objects separated from a number of homogeneous ones. Such nouns are called proper names: Petya, Sidorov, Vera Alexandrovna, Jules Verne, Tolstoy; Moscow, Rostov-on-Don, Black Sea, Karakum; in contrast to common nouns, which are generalized names of homogeneous objects: pioneer, carpenter, teacher, writer; city, sea, lake, mountain, desert.

Questions of onomastics are of interest to many scientists both in Russia and in foreign countries. Many books have been written about proper names, and yet not all general and particular questions related to proper names have satisfactory answers. For example, the origin of the word is still unknown. Moscow, it is not possible to establish its belonging to a particular language.

Scientists involved in the study of proper names share their achievements in the field of toponymy and anthroponymy at conferences and congresses. Proper names, like common nouns, exist in order to name something with them, to designate something. The difference between a proper name and a common noun also lies in the fact that a common noun serves as the name of both a specific object and the whole class to which this object belongs. A proper name, unlike a common noun, is usually given to one object, is, as it were, its property, its belonging.

Relevance of work on this topic: recognizing the etymology of names, we study the history and culture of our people and the peoples of other countries more deeply.

Target: trace the difference between proper and common nouns, how proper names are connected with common nouns; expand theoretical knowledge on onomastics;

Tasks: to study the special literature on the problem under study, to systematize it; generalize the conditions for the transition of proper names into common nouns.

2. The transition of proper names to common nouns

What is the difference between proper and common nouns? How are proper nouns related to common nouns? How does a proper name differ from a common name? What are the conditions for the transition of proper names into common nouns?

The correct answer to the question posed largely depends on understanding the essence of proper names, their specificity. Let's try to understand these issues.

Proper names, like common nouns, exist in order to name something with them, to designate something. The difference between a proper name and a common noun also lies in the fact that a common noun serves as the name of both a specific object and the whole class to which this object belongs. For example, Birch- the name of the birch that grows near our house, on your street and all the birches of any park, grove, forest. A proper name, unlike a common noun, is usually given to one object, is, as it were, its property, its belonging. Yes, in the proposal Astrakhan, Saratov- cities on the Volga, not on the Don or Kama the proper names of specific cities and rivers on the territory of Russia are given. Therefore, proper names have a closer connection with the object than common nouns.

2.1. Proper names - parents of common nouns

Words are transformed, moving from a proper name to a common noun.

For example, here is the word hooligan. They call a person who violates public order. But this word came from a personal name. It came to us from the English capital, near which in the 18th century there was an inn owned by the Irish Hooligan, a rather scandalous person who, like his whole family, caused trouble not only to guests, but also to neighbors. By his name, hooligans began to be called mischievous people who violate the norms of behavior in society.

Now they are ordinary common nouns denoting various objects, and their counterparts have remained proper names. Among them: Berlin- a kind of four-seater carriage, named after the city of Berlin, where it was no longer manufactured at the beginning of the 19th century. The carriage is no longer there, but its name is available in explanatory dictionaries; Damascus- steel obtained by forge welding of numerous thin steel strips or wires woven into a bundle with different carbon contents. Such welding Damascus (Damascus steel) is named after the Syrian city of Damascus, where it was produced in large quantities in the Middle Ages; marten- a furnace in which steel is obtained. Otherwise - open-hearth furnace. Named after the French metallurgist Martin; shrew- a wicked, grumpy woman. It is named after Megera, who personified the wrath and revenge, one of the Erinyes (in Greek mythology, the goddess of vengeance); she was depicted as a disgusting old woman with snakes instead of hair, a long tongue, with a torch and a whip in her hand.

Most of the toponyms and anthroponyms, before moving into the category of common nouns, acquire a certain suffix, with the help of which a new word is formed.

For example, harlequin(after the character of the Italian “comedy of masks”, who plays the role of a witty servant and wears a suit of silk multi-colored triangles and a black mask) the jester, the buffoon is called, and a small pantomime, in which the harlequin and other characters participate, is called harlequinade. Now the word harlequinade denotes buffoonery, jokes. Suffix -hell- helped to form this word in French, from which it passed into Russian.

At school, for a long time, those who sit on the last desk, on "Kamchatka" (after the name of the Kamchatka Peninsula in Eastern Siberia), are called Kamchatka. In the pre-revolutionary school, the worst students were put there. We can read about the Kamchatkas in "Essays of the Bursa". When forming a word Kamchatka suffix used -Nick.

So many proper names, themselves born from common nouns, served as the basis for the formation of new common nouns with a new meaning, with a new sphere of use.

2.2. The transition of proper names into common nouns in cooking

The Irish writer Charles Leaver was the first to make liverwurst and named it after himself, just as the name of the English Lord Sandwich was named after the ones introduced by him. sandwiches- two slices of bread put together with some kind of snack between them. The English Earl of Sandwich was so fond of gambling that he did not even want to go out to eat. He ordered to serve slices of bread with cold meat, which was named after the name of the count. So in 1762 the sandwich was born. The Germans came up with a new name for it - “sandwich” (butter + bread) and they put different sausages on the butter. And the French added pâtés with sauces as fillings and invented hot sandwiches. The Dutch put all sorts of fillings inside a long roll. In Europe, such a multi-layered sandwich is called “Dutch”, i.e. Dutch. And some sandwiches have already begun to be made according to a strict recipe. For example, a "club" sandwich consists of three slices of bread and two different snacks in between. So the "sandwich" (as the British still call it) became the most massive and popular food. The opportunity to have a quick bite to eat in the city without going to restaurants turned out to be tempting for so many people, and this demand was perfectly guessed and solved by McDonald's, founded on April 15, 1955 in the United States of America. It can be said that each nation came up with its own type of sandwich, and the McDonald's company united them all, and even invented its own Bik-Mak sandwich - “big Mac”. It means a multilayer structure with meat, salad, mayonnaise. The company quickly became a leader in catering in many countries around the world.

The dish is named after the Russian Count Stroganov, who introduced a meat dish of small pieces of meat in sauce. beef stroganoff.

Another important person whose name turned out to be associated with cooking is Charlotte (1744–1818), wife of King George III of England and grandmother of the famous Queen Victoria. Charlotte, or rather Sophia-Charlotte, was the daughter of the Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. At 17, she married the King of Great Britain and bore him 15 children. Only two of them died in childhood, and two of the survivors became kings of Great Britain. Charlotte, as befits a royal wife, patronized the arts and botany. On her initiative, the royal botanical garden was founded. Encouraging her subjects to grow healthy fruits - apples, she personally made a sweet pie from apples filled with butter cream. In the dictionary, such a cake is also called respectfully "charlotte", but in our time it has become known as charlotte.

Common variety of plums "greengage" also bears the seal of the royal name. It is named after Queen Claude of France. Claude was considered the richest bride in Europe. From her mother, she inherited the region of Brittany in northern France, and her father, the French king Louis XII, added the newly conquered Milan to the hereditary counties in the Loire Valley. For a long time, favors (not so much for the young bride as for her parents) were sought by Charles of Austria, who later became King of Spain, Charles V. However, the strict parent decided differently, and 15-year-old Claude married Francis of Valois. A year later, under the name of Francis I, he became the king of France, and Claude, respectively, became the queen. Historians say that their marriage was not very happy. It is difficult to judge from a distance, especially since the ideas of happiness in those days were definitely somewhat different from ours. Claude died very young, at 25, and Francis I survived her by almost a quarter of a century. He ordered to name a sweet green plum in honor of his wife, so the name "renklod" (reine Claude - "Queen Claude") appeared. Plum came to France from the Apennine Peninsula during one of the Italian wars. The royal order was executed, but the name of the variety took root not by the will of the king, but because Claude was reputed to be a righteous and merciful ruler. Thanks to the efforts of French gardeners, renclod plums have become even sweeter and tastier. The variety spread throughout Europe, carrying with it the memory of the early deceased French queen.

Word cognac denotes a strong alcoholic drink brandy, produced in the province of Cognac in France; subsequently, any brandy on the territory of our country began to be called cognac.

Let's try to figure out why the type of cereal is called Hercules.

Transferring the quality of Hercules to people like him, Hercules (Hercules) we will call a person of an athletic physique; hercules We also call flattened oatmeal. When the cereal was given this name, it was meant that the children who would eat it would become as strong as Hercules.

The French bacteriologist Louis Pasteur proposed a method for preserving foodstuffs by heating them to a temperature not exceeding 100°C, which kills most bacteria and molds contained in foodstuffs. A very useful way! Now they use it everywhere and call it pasteurization.

Spicy sauce Kabul made from soy and various spices, it got its name from Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan.

The region of Provence in France was named Provençal spicy egg yolk sauce with vegetable oil, vinegar and spices.

Cake Napoleon named after the emperor Napoleon, who loved this type of cake; cream(ice cream with various additives - chocolate, nuts, berries), named after the city of Plombir in France. Montpensier and landrin - two kinds of lollipops. The first is named after the French counts of Montpensier, and the second - after the owner of the Landrin candy factory.

Among the cups, glasses, glasses are wine glasses, lafitniks.

The valuable and best grade of crystal is called baccarat- named after the French city of Baccarat, where a crystal factory was built in 1766.

wine glass- This is a large wide glass used for soft drinks. It is named after the city of Fougères in France, where glass was made for it.

2.3. The transition of proper names into common nouns in units of measurement and measuring instruments

Remarkable advances in physics and related sciences have led to the need to create new units, which could not exist before. These units also needed to be given a name. And they were named after famous scientists: ampere- by the name, watt- by the name of D. Watta, volt- A. Volta, joule- D. Prescott Joule, hertz- G. Hertz, pendant- Sh. Coulomb, pascal- B. Pascal, x-ray- V. Roentgen, newton - I. Newton, ohm- S. Oma Let's remember the measuring devices formed from proper names. easy to remember ammeter(device for measuring the strength of electric current), voltmeter(a device for measuring voltage between two points in an electrical circuit), voltameter(a device for measuring the strength of an electric current by its chemical effect), ohmmeter(a device for the direct measurement of resistances expressed in ohms),

The names of other measuring instruments do not contain the element -meter. These are proper names that have passed into the category of common nouns without changes: firstly, breguet(pocket watch made in the workshop of the Frenchman Breguet). These clocks chimed the minutes and even showed the day of the month. Remember, in Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin": Already the ringing of breguet informs them that a new ballet has begun. Secondly, these are the names denoting thermometers. You are familiar with one of the thermometers. His name is Celsius. It has a scale of 100 degrees from the melting point of the ice to the boiling point. Named after the inventor, the Swedish astronomer of the XVIII century A. Celsius (indicated by the Latin letter C). Another thermometer is less well known. It has an 80° scale from the melting point of ice to the boiling point of water. They called him réaumur named after a French physicist of the 18th century. The third thermometer is named Fahrenheit named after the 18th-century German physicist Fahrenheit, who first made a mercury thermometer. It has a scale on which the melting point of ice is 32 degrees and the boiling point of water is 212 degrees. This thermometer is still used in England and the USA.

R. Diesel, a German engineer, directed his efforts to something else - in 1897 he invented an internal combustion engine called diesel, which soon became widespread.

2.4. The transition of proper names to common nouns in the names of chemical elements of the periodic table

When the great Russian scientist was 35 years old, he had already discovered one of the basic laws of natural science - the periodic law of chemical elements and formulated it as follows: “The properties of simple bodies, as well as the shapes and properties of the compounds of elements, are in a periodic dependence ... on the magnitude of the atomic weights of the elements ". On the basis of this law, he created a periodic system of chemical elements and predicted the existence and properties of several elements subsequently discovered by other scientists. These elements filled in those cells that were empty in his table.

In the periodic table of elements, hydrogen and helium occupy the first places. As for the last places, even 50 years ago the table ended with the 98th element - California. And when D. I. Mendeleev compiled his table, there were only 63 elements in it. This was in 1869.

Now there are 107 elements in the table and it is not known how many new ones will be opened and how they will be named.

So we come to the names of chemical elements. Each new chemical element discovered by scientists or artificially created by them needs to be given a name that distinguishes it from already known elements. This name must be such that it can also be used to form a symbol that is different from the rest of the symbols that filled the table in a strictly defined order. It would be very good if the name of the element did not cause difficulties in its pronunciation and spelling. Of course, it would not hurt to perpetuate the memory of those scientists who left a noticeable mark in world science in the name of the element.

The discoverers and creators of new chemical elements took this into account: the last elements of the table are named after world-famous scientists: Einstein, Fermi, the creator of the periodic table, Joliot Curie, Rutherford, Kurchatov and Niels Bohr.

The periodic table can tell not only about the chemical elements, their properties, their place in the periodic system, but also about the countries, cities, people who are “hidden” in it.

Of the 107 elements, more than a third of the names (43) are formed either directly from proper names, or from such common nouns, which themselves are formed from proper names. These are the names:

formed from

from toponyms:

Americium

Germanium

educated

from anthroponyms

Kurchatovy

Mendelevium

Plutonium

Promethium

Einsteinium

We carefully reread the words of the first column and determine which chemical elements are named after the country. Yes it americium, germanium, europium, californium, scandium, francium, which are easily correlated with place names America, Germany, Europe, California, Scandinavia, France.

If about the origin of the names europium, francium and others were easy to guess, then maybe some of you noticed that among the given names of chemical elements formed from the name of the country, there is no indium. This is no coincidence.

In honor of A. Einstein, the great physicist, father of the theory of relativity, element No. 99 was named - einsteinium, first discovered in a thermonuclear explosion. The chemical and physico-mechanical properties of this element have not yet been sufficiently studied.

The hundredth element, discovered in 1952 also in the products of a thermonuclear explosion, was named fermium in honor of the largest Italian physicist E. Fermi.

At the beginning of 1955, the 101st element was discovered. It was discovered at the Radiation Laboratory of the University of California by five researchers and named after the creator of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements. mendelevium.

The name of the element nobelium is derived from the name of the inventor of dynamite and the founder of the fund of international (Nobel) prizes A Nobel. This element was at one time in the periodic table.

Element 104 was first synthesized at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna in 1964. It was received by a group of scientists headed by an academician. The creators of the element suggested calling it kurchatov- in honor of the outstanding Russian physicist.

2.5. The transition of proper names to common nouns in botany

Seeing a butterfly in the first warm days, we say: “Real spring. The butterflies are already flying! The next day, a butterfly flew by again, not like yesterday. But we will also say about her: “What a beautiful butterfly!” And although butterflies are different, we (unlike entomologists) often do not know the name of each of their varieties, therefore, in speech we use the common name - a butterfly.

Here is a butterfly named Psyche. But once Psyche (in Greek mythology) was a royal daughter and was famous for her extraordinary beauty. The Greeks depicted Psyche more often as a butterfly or a girl with butterfly wings. Butterfly named psyche, also stands out for its beauty. You can see it in illustrated special magazines, albums or in museums where collections of butterflies are exhibited.

A large beetle up to 15 centimeters long living in South America is called hercules(named after the mythical Hercules, the strongest of the Greek heroes).

The names of mythological characters are ground beetles and various worms. Imagine a ground beetle that bravely charges at prey, although it is much larger than it is. This beetle was named Procrustes by the name of the robber Procrustes. Named after the goddess of beauty Aphrodite Aphrodite(sea worm). Another species of marine worm is named Nereid(named after one of the sea nymphs - Nereid, daughters of Nereus), a tailed amphibian from the salamander family, similar to a lizard, is named newt(named after the sea deity Triton, depicted as an old man or young man with a fish tail instead of legs).

No less famous small fish - sardines (sardines). They owe their name to the island of Sardinia in the Mediterranean Sea.

The flora of the earth is so rich and diverse that scientists are still finding more and more new plants. However, they not only find, but also breed new varieties. Where do you get the words to name them? Proper names again come to the aid of scientists. It is good that the language has many such words in stock that can be used to name a new subject. Here, breeders bred a new variety of wheat in the Kuban, they did the same at the Stavropol experimental station, at the Mironovskaya state breeding station, located in Ukraine, and at the Novourenskaya station in the Ulyanovsk region. Naturally, these varieties of wheat are named: Kubanka, Stavropol, Ukrainian, Ulyanovsk. Approximately in the same way they are named vyatka(winter rye variety), Crimean(winter wheat variety), kutuzovka(maize variety) Muscovite(spring wheat variety), omka(a variety of winter rye) and other varieties of cereals.

And some plants get their names from the name of the place where they were taken from. The orange was exported from China (Dutch appelsien means "Chinese apple"), coffee - from the country of Kaffa, located in Africa; peaches- from Persia.

Many interesting things are hidden in the names of flowers. Here is a flower with a double color of inflorescences - ivan da marya, or maryannik. In forest glades, in meadows, on the banks of rivers and streams, in the steppe, you can also find flowers with the following names: avdotka, akulinka, matryonka, andreevka, timothy, Ivan-tea. These are all popular names for herbs. We will not find these names in modern dictionaries of the Russian literary language, with the possible exception of the last two. But if you turn to dictionaries of various dialects of the Russian language, you can find such names of plants and flowers in them. For example, in the "Etymological Dictionary" of Shansky there are names of plants: Akulinka, Annushka, Annushka's Tears, Vanya Curly or vanya curly and others. Why are these plants so called? What do they have to do with Akulina, Avdotya, Annushka, Matryona, Ivan or Timothy, unknown to us? As for the name ivan da marya, then it, if you believe the tale, arose like this. Fate separated brother Vanya from his sister Mashenka in childhood. When they grew up and met, they fell in love, and Ivan married Marya. Having learned about their relationship, in order not to be separated, they turned into a double-colored flower, which since then has been called Ivan da Marya.

Trees with large evergreen leathery leaves and large white fragrant flowers are magnolia. It was named after the Frenchman Pierre Magnol, who lived in the 17th century.

2.6. The transition of proper names to common nouns in the name of weapons

Pistol systems are many, as are other types of firearms. However, if you look closely at their names, we will notice: firearms are mainly called the name of the inventor.

Some creators of weapons are trying to prove the advantages of their product, glorify it, and along with it, themselves.

The Belgian designer L., Nagant invented a revolver with a rotating drum and named it after himself - revolver. The Americans J. Browning and S. Colt did the same. The first to name a pistol after himself browning, and the second, the owner of a large factory for the production of handguns, named the revolver he invented by his own name Colt. German designers brothers Pavel and Wilhelm Mauser created mausers(pistol and repeating rifle), which were manufactured in their factories.

A rapid-fire automatic weapon - a machine gun - was invented in 1883 and named maxim named after the inventor, American engineer Hoirem Maxim.

100 years ago, the Russian army was armed with a rifle created by Russian designers together with an American designer, Colonel Berdan. This rifle was named Berdanka. Now it can only be seen in the museum.

During the Great Patriotic War, barrelless rocket artillery systems appeared in our arsenal. The soldiers gave them an affectionate name katyusha, which is associated with the name of M. Isakovsky's popular song "Katyusha" in the prewar years. In military vernacular Katyusha they also jokingly called flint, that is, a steel plate for making fire by striking flint.

Proper names are called not only pistols, rifles, machine guns, machine guns, but also shells, even bullets.

Word shrapnel. This is the name of an artillery shell. It is filled with spherical bullets and has a special remote tube with which the projectile explodes at a given point in the trajectory. This projectile was created in 1803 by the English inventor G. Shrapnel and thus went down in history.

2.7. The transition of proper names to common nouns in the name of clothing

In the comedies of the French comedian Beaumarchais "The Barber of Seville" and "The Marriage of Figaro", some characters wore clothes, the cut of which pleased the audience. And they began to sew such clothes for themselves. So it appeared almaviva- a wide men's cloak of a special cut (it was worn by Count Almaviva from The Barber of Seville) and figaro- a kind of short loose women's blouse worn over a dress (it was worn by Figaro).

In "Eugene Onegin" Tatyana Larina appeared on stage in a dress with a tight-fitting bodice and a gathered wide skirt. This dress was called tatyanka.“She was completely different from Pushkin's Tatyana, except for her Tatyana and shoulder-length curls,” we read in V. Kaverin's story “Two Captains”.

The comic character of the Italian folk comedies Pantalone was dressed in panties trimmed with lace, called trousers.

Now let's turn our attention to outerwear for men. Many people know the words french, riding breeches, raglan. Their names contain the names not of the characters in the plays, but of the people who were the first to wear these clothes and thus left a memory of themselves. The French is a military jacket with a waist, four large patch pockets and a tab at the back. This jacket was worn by the English Field Marshal John French. And breeches, wide at the hips and fitted at the knees, were worn by the French General Gaston Galiffe, one of the executioners of the Paris Commune.

General Raglan was the first in the history of tailoring to put on a coat in which the sleeve was one piece with the shoulder. The cut itself and the coat of this style were called raglan.

And here is the cloak mac. It is made of waterproof rubberized fabric. The name of the raincoat remembers the Scottish chemist Charles Macintosh, who invented a method for making waterproof fabrics.

More recently, many people liked the men's knitted sweatshirt, similar to the one worn by the famous writer E. Hemingway. They called her Hemingway.

Some names of men's clothing have a geographical origin. These include: Hungarian- jacket with a high waist, drawstrings at the seams and cross cords for fastening. Such jackets were worn in Hungary. Doesn't look like her Siberian- a short caftan at the waist, with fees, without a slit at the back and with a standing collar (such clothing was common in Siberia); Moldavian- a jacket worn by women in Moldova.

Not so long ago, a raincoat was in fashion, originally made in the Italian city of Bologna from nylon fabric with a one-sided waterproof coating. This coat was called Bologna.

marengo, black fabric with white threads, named after the village of Marengo in Northern Italy. Now the word marengo used to denote black with a gray tint. They say: marengo-colored fabric.

Cashmere and madapolam, or madepolam named after the region of Kashmir and the city of Madapolam in India; crepe de chine, fide chine, Chinese and nanca named after the French name for China - Shin, after the city of Nanjing and the Russian name for China; Moroccan in the country of Morocco in northwest Africa.

America represented boston, this is a thin cloth named after the city of Boston in the USA.

2.8. The transition of proper names to common nouns

in attributes shstake life

Here is Whatman paper. Otherwise it is called drawing paper. It is used for drawing and painting. It got its name from the owner of the English paper factory Whatman. BUT parchment, parchment, or parchment paper, thick paper impervious to grease and moisture and used for packaging, as well as glassine - thin durable paper for making natural paper tracing paper - named after the city of Pergamon in Asia Minor, where in the 2nd century BC. e. processing of leather for writing was widely used. Specially treated animal skin (especially calves) was used not only for writing (before the spread of paper), but also for making drums and for other purposes.

3. Proper names and character of a person.

Word hooligan became common in Russia after the outbreak of the First World War. And during the years of the revolution and the Civil War, when all the fetters, including moral ones, were weakened as much as possible, it already seemed almost the original Russian word. However, the origin of this word is English. G. Belykh and L. Panteleev, in their famous book about homeless children "The Republic of ShKID", explaining its appearance, refer to the legend according to which the Hooligan family lived in England in the 19th century. These Hooligans owned an inn on the Dover Highway and were frequented by nobles and merchants from the Continent. The owners robbed and killed them. But the "terrible secret of the inn" was revealed, and the royal court sentenced the family of the killers to death. And hooligans from that time were called murderers, thieves and arsonists. In the Russian language, the form "hooligan" quickly took root. The explanation is interesting, but there are other versions. According to one of them, the Irishman Patrick Hooligan, who lived near London at the end of the 18th century and owned an inn there, was such a brawler, annoyed guests and neighbors so much that he soon became "famous" for his disgusting, unbearable behavior. He was repeatedly reported in the reports of the London police, and his name became a household name.

But what version is contained in the British Encyclopedia. In the 18th century, the Irishman Hully lived in London, who organized a number of gangs that were distinguished by a special riot. They began to be called hooligans, that is, members of the Hully gang.

Be that as it may, the English word quickly took root on Russian soil. And today, any dictionary will explain that a bully is someone who clearly and grossly violates public order and expresses disrespect for others.

The works of Mikhail Evgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin are eternally relevant to Russian life. And it is impossible to accurately translate them into other languages. It is required to accompany the translation with voluminous explanations.

This eccentric intrigue and the huge expenses of the royal favorite at the expense of the state treasury were primarily what Shchedrin had in mind when he used the word "pompadour". In addition, the title of the famous marquise was consonant with the Russian word "tyrant", which censorship would hardly have missed in the description of senior government officials. So try to translate Shchedrin's "pompadour", for example, into English! And there is already such a word (as in almost all European languages) - it means a hairstyle put into use by the same active madam. A sort of cook, which Madame de Pompadour began to beat on her head, finding that the hairline was thinning. And turns gray! Instead of putting on a wig or dyeing her hair (although this method was not used by French fashionistas at that time), the marquise whipped up a cook and put her gray hair on public display, immediately introducing a fashion for a gray strand in a lady's hairstyle.

Now let's get acquainted with some of the heroes of Western European classical literature, whose character and behavior were reflected in their names, which became, as it were, the hallmarks of these heroes. In order to find out the meaning of the word, you need to refer to the explanatory dictionary. But some words may not be in the dictionary. How to be? In this case, you need to turn to the original source, that is, read the work in which the character is constantly “registered”. After reading and understanding the system of images of this work, you will not only know what content is embedded in the word, not only use it correctly, but also skillfully use the character’s own name in the meaning of a common noun.

Of the many plays by the English playwright W. Shakespeare, Othello and The Tragic Story of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark are especially popular. From the first play, the names Othello and Iago became winged, from the second - Hamlet.

Word otello we call a jealous person because the hero of Shakespeare's tragedy, the Venetian Moor Othello, was morbidly jealous and out of jealousy strangled his wife Desdemona; word iago we call the scoundrel-slanderer, because the officer Iago, taking advantage of the gullibility of Othello, slandered Desdemona, which led to her death; Hamlet- a person who always and in everything doubts (remember the monologue of Hamlet, which begins with the words: “To be or not to be? - that is the question ...”).

Don Juan from the comedy of the French playwright Jean Moliere "Don Juan" and Don Quixote from the novel by the Spanish writer Miguel Cervantes de Saavedra "The Cunning Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha" are not similar to each other. The first is a man who spent his life in love adventures. The lovers of such adventures are called Don Juan. The second is a disinterested, funny dreamer, wasting his strength in the fight against imaginary obstacles, not considering that this fight is useless, and causing only ridicule from everyone. Such dreamers-dreamers, far from real life, are called donquixotes. Rosinante - the name of the old emaciated horse of Don Quixote - also became a household word: rosinante playfully called the exhausted old nag.

Anecdotal stories about the German baron Munchausen and his incredible travels and adventures have been known for a long time. They were collected and in 1785 published in Oxford in English translation under the title "Stories of Baron Munchausen about his wonderful travels and campaign in Russia". A person who shamelessly lies and boasts, like Munchausen, is called Munchausen.

Russian classical literature is also rich in characters whose names and surnames began to be used as common nouns. Remember the actors of the comedy "Undergrowth" Prostakov, Mitrofanushka, Skotinin, Vralman.

Who do we call Mitrofan? Mitrofan or mitrofanushka the name of a stupid young dropout. An ignorant German, a former coachman who becomes Mitrofan's teacher, is the best suited for the speaking surname Vralman, which unambiguously characterizes its owner. Vralman means "braggart, liar, liar."

In the comedy "Woe from Wit" there are a number of surnames that have become common nouns. The meanings of these surnames are well known to you. Recall: Famusov- an arrogant careerist bureaucrat, servile to those who are above him; puffer- a rude martinet, recognizing nothing but service.

Molchalin- an obsequious, hypocritical person who is afraid to express his opinion, and an unprincipled careerist; repeaters- a talker who does not have his own thoughts and repeats other people's words.

Researchers have calculated that of all the proper names of Gogol's characters, at least eleven have become common nouns. These are Manilov, Korobochka, Nozdrev, Plyushkin, Sobakevich, Khlestakov, Chichikov. Less well known are Derzhimorda, Disrespect-Trough, Poprishchin and Tryapichkin.

4. Conclusion

The names of inventors, scientists, discoverers remain in the names of the laws, units of measurement, technologies and devices discovered by them, or in geographical names. But there are such names that are closer to an individual person, to people, and not to science. These names, as a rule, are either forgotten or unexpectedly remain in the language, as if being separated from their speakers. Sometimes they turn into the names of companies or machines, devices, behind which people stop recognizing a person's name. This is not necessary, the main thing is that they served their purpose and still remain with us. I would like to name a few of these.

Louis Pasteur is a name widely known in science, in particular in medicine. But this is the only known case when the name of a French scientist, the creator of microbiology as a science, was transformed into the verb "pasteurize". After all, they don’t say “X-ray”, but simply call the apparatus operating on the basis of the scientist’s discovery an X-ray. By the way, Konrad Roentgen is the world's first Nobel Prize winner, awarded to him in 1901 for a discovery that "changed the life of mankind." And when we go “for an x-ray”, we remember that initially it was still a person. Before Louis Pasteur, sterilization was a well-known method of preserving food. Every housewife today knows that pasteurizing products at a temperature not exceeding 100 ° C means killing microorganisms in them without harming the product itself. But few housewives will associate this excellent method of food preservation with the name of Pasteur. This is how the surname takes on a second life.

In 1759, the French finance minister Étienne de Silhouette, having resigned, began to cut out portraits from paper, named after him. Later, the word "silhouette" entered the language in a broader sense. Denoting a vague outline of a person, figure or object.

Scotsman D. McIntosh made his name famous by being the first person to make a waterproof raincoat. It was a salvation from constant rains and even fogs for Scotland and England. And although most people wearing macs around the world do not know that this is the name of the inventor, they are still grateful to him.

List of used literature

1., From proper names to common nouns. / , . – M.: Enlightenment, 1999.

2. Blau M . From Doberman to bully. From proper names to common nouns. /M. Blau. - AST. Astrel, 2003.

3., Bobrov dictionary / , . - M.: Proserpina, 1998.

4. To the origins of the word. Stories about the science of etymology. / . - M .: Education, 2001.

5. Nikonov in toponymy./. – M.: Enlightenment, 1998.

There is a huge variety of phenomena in the world. For each of them in the language there is a name. If it names a whole group of objects, then such a word is. When there is a need to name one object from a number of homogeneous ones, then the language has its own names for this.

nouns

Common nouns are such nouns that immediately designate a whole class of objects united by some common features. For example:

• Each water stream can be called in one word - a river.
• Any plant with a trunk and branches is a tree.
• All animals of gray color, large size, with a trunk instead of a nose are called elephants.
• Giraffe - any animal with a long neck, small horns and high growth.

Proper names are nouns that distinguish one object from the entire class of similar phenomena. For example:

• The dog's name is Buddy.
• My cat's name is Murka.
• This river is the Volga.
• The deepest lake is Baikal.

When we know what our own name is, we can perform the following task.

Practice #1

Which nouns are proper nouns?

Moscow; city; Earth; planet; bug; dog; Vlad; boy; radio station; "Lighthouse".

Capital letter in proper nouns

As can be seen from the first task, proper names, unlike common nouns, are written with a capital letter. Sometimes it happens that the same word is written with a small letter, then with a capital:

• bird eagle, the city of Oryol, the ship "Eagle";
• strong love, girl Love;
• early spring, lotion "Spring";
• riverside willow, restaurant "Iva".

If you know what your own name is, then it’s easy to understand the reason for this phenomenon: words denoting single objects are capitalized in order to separate them from others of the same kind.

Quotation marks for own names

In order to know how to correctly use quotation marks in your own names, you need to learn the following: proper names, denoting phenomena in the world, created by human hands, stand apart. In this case, quotation marks act as isolation marks:

• newspaper "New World";
• do-it-yourself magazine;
• factory "Amta";
• hotel "Astoria";
• ship "Swift".

The transition of words from common nouns to proper ones and vice versa

It cannot be said that the distinction between the categories of proper names and common nouns is unshakable. Sometimes common nouns become proper names. We talked about the rules for writing them above. What are your own names? Examples of transition from the category of common nouns:

• cream "Spring";
• perfume "Jasmine";
• cinema "Zarya";
• magazine "Worker".

Proper names also easily become generalized names of homogeneous phenomena. Below are our own names, which can already be called common nouns:

• These are my young don Juan!
• We aim at Newtons, but we don’t know the formulas ourselves;
• You are all Pushkins until you write the dictation.

Practice #2

Which sentences contain proper nouns?

1. We decided to meet at the "Ocean".

2. In the summer I swam in the real ocean.

3. Anton decided to give his beloved the perfume "Rose".

4. The rose was cut in the morning.

5. We are all Socrates in our kitchen.

6. This idea was first put forward by Socrates.

Classification of proper names

It would seem that it is easy to learn what a proper name is, but you still need to repeat the main thing - proper names are assigned to one object from a whole series. It is advisable to classify the following series of phenomena:

The names of people, surnames, patronymics, nicknames of animals are animate nouns, and geographical names and designations of everything created by man are inanimate. This is how their own names are characterized from the point of view of the category of animation.

Proper names in the plural

It is necessary to dwell on one point, which is due to the semantics of the studied features of proper names in that they are rarely used in the plural. You can use them to refer to multiple items as long as they have the same proper name:

The surname can be used in the plural. number in two cases. First, if it denotes a family, people who are related:

• It was customary for the Ivanovs to gather for dinner with the whole family.
• The Karenins lived in Petersburg.
• The Zhurbin dynasty had at all a hundred years of experience at a metallurgical plant.

Secondly, if namesakes are called:

• Hundreds of Ivanovs can be found in the register.
• They are my full namesakes: Grigoriev Alexandra.

- inconsistent definitions

One of the tasks of the Unified State Examination in the Russian language requires knowledge of what your own name is. Graduates are required to establish correspondences between sentences and those allowed in them. One of these is a violation in the construction of a sentence with an inconsistent application. The fact is that the proper name, which is an inconsistent application, does not change in cases with the main word. Examples of such sentences with grammatical errors are given below:

• Lermontov was not enthusiastic about his poem "The Demon" (the poem "The Demon").
• Dostoevsky described the spiritual crisis of his time in the novel "The Brothers Karamazov" (in the novel "The Brothers Karamazov").
• A lot is said and written about the film "Taras Bulba" (About the film "Taras Bulba").

If a proper name acts as an addition, that is, in the absence of a defined word, then it can change its form:

• Lermontov was not enthusiastic about his "Demon".
• Dostoevsky described the spiritual crisis of his time in The Brothers Karamazov.
• A lot is said and written about Taras Bulba.

Practice #3

Which sentences have errors?

1. We stood for a long time at the painting "Barge Haulers on the Volga".

2. In The Hero of His Time, Lermontov sought to uncover the problems of his era.

3. In the "Journal of Pechorin" the vices of a secular person are revealed.

four). The story "Maxim Maksimych" reveals the image of a beautiful person.

5. In his opera The Snow Maiden, Rimsky-Korsakov sang love as the highest ideal of mankind.