Translated material
Mikhail Epstein. The gift of words. Issue 5
Projective dictionary of the Russian language.
Mikhail Epshtein
Publication date: December 2, 2002
Time (1)
In time is one of the most universal concepts of culture: everyday and historical experience, mythological and scientific worldview. The sense of time itself is constantly updated with time - accordingly, new derivatives from this Proto-Slavic root are needed (its primary meaning is “to turn”; time is “spindle”).
The repertoire of “time” in language is still very limited and incommensurate with the fundamental role of this concept in culture. Rarely used, narrow in meaning nouns “temporary worker”, “temporary worker” and “temporary worker”; only two verbs, also rare: “to postpone” and “to modernize”... A country whose relations over time have developed so dramatically: from the revolutionary “timequake” to the late communist “timelessness” - has the right to a more sophisticated language of time, to elaboration and reflection of one’s historical experience in the lexical system of “ time words ”. Such work can be especially useful for writers, philosophers, historians, critics, journalists - all observers of different times and spokesmen for their time.
First, let's turn to V. Dahl and V. Khlebnikov , the most gifted and prolific Russian word creators. One is a passionate collector of words, often secretly adding coins of his own modest mintage to the treasury of the folk language. The other is a poet who creates words-visions, words-phantasms and is little concerned about interpreting them, making them a bargaining chip for the people's circulation of meaning.
In Dahl, the root “time” is developed relatively little. The article "raven", for example, is almost twice as long and more derivative. Dahl, and the “living Great Russian” presented in his dictionary, is stronger and more detailed in the specifics of nature, life, and craft than in general concepts. Of the unusual words, not commonly used in academic dictionaries of the 20th century, there is temporary (changeable, fickle, uneven in character, whimsical), vremenitel (a procrastinator, a procrastinator, an indecisive person), vremeMER (an instrument for measuring time; sundial, sand clock, wheel clock). These words from Dahl are more tempting than their self-evident interpretations, which, moreover, consist entirely of synonyms, i.e. offering a replacement and thereby eliminating the special need for the interpreted word itself. Why introduce it into the language if there are many words without it that mean the same thing? The synonymous method of definition, which Dahl often resorts to instead of the analytical one, is insidious: it rather calls the word into question than proves its usefulness; introduces it into the language - and immediately shows how perfectly you can do without it. Moreover, there are no examples of use for all the words mentioned.
For Velimir Khlebnikov, the theme of time is one of the most exciting and world-forming; his early, little-researched pamphlet was called "Time is the measure of the world." Khlebnikov has about 30 one-word phrases - linguistic fantasies on the theme of time, of which, in my opinion, the most successful: vremyshi (“vremyshi-reeds”), vremir (“flock of easy times”), Vreminya (“priestess of Vreminya compressed fields”), vremyanin (“I am a vremyanin / I overtook the temporary place...”), place-time (“a person as a place-time point”), time-bearer, time-painting, vremnina . (Natalia Pertsova. Dictionary of neologisms by Velimir Khlebnikov. Wiener Slavistischer Almanach. Sonderband 40, Wien-Moskau, 1995, pp. 425-26). The last three words appear in Khlebnikov’s handwritten heritage and their contexts and meanings are not given in Pertsova’s dictionary (perhaps they are also absent in the manuscripts).
In the book by V.P. Grigoriev “The Grammar of Idiostyle. V. Khlebnikov” (M. Nauka., 1983) the following expressions of Khlebnikov are given, without indicating the sources: light is the “ time bearer of the universe” (p. 11), “we are time diggers in crowd of reluctant people" (p. 65), "large amounts of time in words (88-89). In general, Khlebnikov, as a rule, does not give an interpretation of his neologisms, often uses them once or does not give an example of use at all, which makes it difficult to use them outside Khlebnikov’s context. Actually, most of these new formations are generally devoid of context, they are given in drafts, lists, more like experimental morphocomplexes than lexemes with a specific meaning. Some of these complexes, namely: vremyanin , vremenOsets , vremyapis , vremnina , we will further try to “ define ” and. even “ dictionary ”, i.e. presented as lexemes, with a specific meaning and examples of use.
We will divide the timelines into three or four issues, based on the fact that it is difficult for the reader to overcome, much less absorb, more than 7-9 words in one sitting (the magic number 7 plus/minus 2 as the limiting number of objects that the human consciousness can simultaneously operate with). In total, these three issues offer about 25 new formations from the root “time” and several words formed along the way, in the context of speech examples and in association with time - “ ever-writing ”, “ ever-being ”, “ vsesvetnik ” and “ benevolent ”.
Once again I would like to ask readers to pay special attention to speech examples: they are no less important for the perception of a word than definitions. If a projective dictionary is the experience of tasting new words, then only in a speech example the word is not just looked around, smelled, but also “put on the tongue.”
In this issue:
temporarily
time frenzy
time fear
bring time
modernization
put on time
to grow old, to grow old
vremenya (acceleration of two words: time + changed), a common noun, 1st cl., can be used in two meanings:
1. Someone who exchanges one time and its values for another, often with the aim of extracting significant profit, ideological capital.
Once upon a time this Pushkin scholar wrote a doctoral dissertation on the influence of Decembrism on Pushkin’s work, and now he proves with no less success that Pushkin is a misunderstood religious poet.
In the USSR, the free exchange of monetary currency was prohibited, but another exchange was in use: signs and values of time. Vremenyala is the central ideological figure of the Soviet era. The past was traded with great profit for the rapidly growing shares of the present and a bright future.
I don’t like these lively times of science: they fussily run from one time to another in order to make capital for themselves by speculating on the exchange of cultural currency. They are trying to foist on us Batyushkov or Baratynsky as our contemporaries, ready to bear the burden - and time - of our passions. They renovate old people in order to sell them at a higher price.
In Soviet times, there were many who studied history or philology only out of disgust for their era, who wanted to bury themselves headlong in the ancient Greeks or Pushkin’s galaxy. These disinterested temporary people made a profitable exchange in their own way: they paid with everyday poverty for the comfort of staying in the unshakable past.
2. The time traveler, a favorite figure in science fiction, " time changer " (title of an American film). In this meaning, the word "timeYala" has a colloquial connotation.
This lucky time- changer finds himself in an era where the memory of him is revered as the greatest poet of the “golden age”.
Can you imagine a future where all sorts of merchants, hustlers, temporary vagabonds travel freely from one century to another? - But then there will be no future, times will not change, “ time will pass .” There will be only temporary zones, just as there are now regional and state ones. And at the borders they will catch passportless temporary people who do not have registration and citizenship at a certain time.
timelessness - obsession, blindness by time; serving time as an idol, willingness to make sacrifices on its altar.
The Russian “ -besie ” can be used as a correspondence to the international (Greek in origin) “-mania” - the secondary root of compound words, meaning passionate enthusiasm, sometimes reaching the point of insane obsession.
“I hate the word “eternity,” Lika suddenly flared up. “I live in this time, I don’t know any other and don’t want to know. It may be vile, vile, but it is mine. If you call this time madness , so much the worse for you.” Anyone who doesn’t enjoy my time cannot be with me.”
Sometimes people are suddenly attacked by a strange illness, historical insanity: they are ready to curse their father, grandfather, their entire ancient family - just to glorify their time... Time madness is a disease of pride, when people identify themselves with their time, even if it destroys themselves.
The word chronomania, chronomania in European languages usually has a different meaning than the “ time frenzy ” proposed here: a collecting passion for watches, time measuring devices.
timephobia (chronophobia, chronophobia) - fear of time, the desire to stop its progress, to isolate oneself from modernity; neurotic fear of passing days and years.
Do you remember in Chekhov's " Man in a Case " there is Mavra, who spent her whole life in a hut, behind the stove. But I fly all over the world, spending almost every week in a different city - and do you know why? Because I am like this Chekhovian Mavra. Only I’m afraid not of space, but of time. When I'm on the road, it's like I fall out of it. Do you think that if it weren’t for this damned fear of time , I would have become such a nomad?
He completely stopped reading newspapers and listening to the radio - he went deep into his Greeks. I know where he gets this fear of time . He is simply afraid of death.
Where there is gerontocracy, there is chronophobia. What were these elders most afraid of? Not America, but time. Tick-tock, tick-tock... Normal fear of their age, aggravated by the decrepitude of the political regime.
Time madness and time fear act as antonyms.
The history of a people, like the history of an individual, is an alternation of manic and depressive states. Let us remember how from the madness of the 20-40s we fell into the fear of the 60-80s, and then turned in the opposite direction. Not only time is personified by the pendulum, but also our attitude towards it.
to temporize , to temporize (transitive verb; cf. to burden, to inseminate) - to make something temporary, to introduce into the course of time; approach something from the point of view of a specific time and its values, historicize.
Stop talking about timeless classics. If you are making a movie based on Chekhov, then you are ready to modernize it.
Marxism sees its task as modernizing every cultural phenomenon and placing it in the context of history. The question is whether it is possible to time something that is inherently addressed to eternity. Doesn't such a purely historical interpretation distort the very essence of religion or art?
modernization - the entry or introduction of time into the realm of something timeless.
Late 1980s - 1990s in Russia, this is a time of rapid modernization of culture, which over the previous decades had become accustomed to the conditions of timelessness, the utopian “now and always.” 1
to time (cf. tame, tie, time) - adapt to a certain time, its requests and needs.
to be in time (cf. to adapt, to dress up) - to adapt, to adapt to the time, to adopt its fashion, to dress up in its colors and style.
The authorities tried not so much to directly bribe, but to delay the genius, to fit him into the calendar of their working days and holidays.
They said about Pesotsky that he was, of course, a good poet, but he was too time-worn , pricy, and didn’t have enough pure lyricism.
Mandelstam tried to take time , to caress the time, but it rudely and contemptuously pushed him away.
to temporize , to temporize - an intransitive verb (cf. flame, turn to stone, become wooden) - grow into time, become part of time; to enter into a state of temporariness, to be subject to the action of time.
Mayakovsky was a poet of a grandiose, cosmic-apocalyptic vision, but with the advent of Soviet power he grew older and became a singer of the Cheka and the State Planning Committee.
Are you really stuck with the postmodernists in this stupid “end of history”? Just look how everything around you is changing , how China, Russia, and the Islamic world are changing . History is just beginning its new cycle.
You have strange ideas about poetry. "Flames, time !" What am I, a watch, a volcano? I sprinkle myself a little, like autumn rain, I’ve had enough.
time can also be used as an impersonal verb (cf. darken, dawn, evening), indicating time as an action or process that does not have a subject.
After a short frantic night, when the clock stopped, they went out onto the porch. It was getting light. It's time . It smelled of freshly fallen snow and the inevitability of separation.
Note
1 The words “ temporize ”, “modernization” are used by Nikolai Berdyaev, as a rule, in a critical sense (in particular, criticism of Heidegger), as components of the process of objectification, externalization, dying of the spirit and freedom.
“Time is the meaning of care. But this is only one of the aspects of temporization. Not only care and fear temporize, but also the change that comes from the activity and creativity of the new, the non-existent.”
“Projection in time, contemplation, like projection in space, spatialization of existence is objectification. The objectified world is temporal and spatial.”
Nikolay Berdyaev. Me and the world of objects. An experience in the philosophy of loneliness and communication . Reflection IV. Disease of time. Change and eternity.
Previous episodes of "The Gift of the Word"
1. Introduction to the project. One-word is the minimal genre of literature.
2. Self-righteousness . How does it differ from complacency, pride and fanaticism?
3. Love . How to talk “about this” without falling into either bookishness or
vernacular. Prepositions and cases of love feelings.
4. Love . Love is when I love, love is when I am loved. How can you act in love and why dislike is worse than lovelessness.