A disservice to the origin story. Disservice

A disservice is clumsy, inept help in something, which brings evil, harm, and grief instead of good or benefit. The phrase comes from the fable “The Hermit and the Bear” written in 1807, although this phraseological unit is not in the fable, but that is precisely its meaning. At the same time, in “The Hermit and the Bear” there are two expressions that remain unchanged:

• "A helpful fool is more dangerous than an enemy"
• “That way the dirty laundry isn’t washed in public.”

Hermit and Bear

Although the service is dear to us in need,
But not everyone knows how to tackle it:
God forbid you contact a fool!
A helpful fool is more dangerous than an enemy.
___________

There lived a certain man, rootless, lonely,
Far from the city, in the middle of nowhere.
About desert life, no matter how sweetly you write,
But not everyone can live alone:
It is comforting for us to share both sadness and joy.
They will say to me: “And the meadow, and the dark oak grove,
Hillocks, streams and silk grass?
“Beautiful, needless to say!
And everything will become boring, as if there is no one to say words to.”
So to that Hermit
I miss being alone forever.
He goes into the forest to meet his neighbors,
To get acquainted with someone.
Whom do you come across in the forest?
Besides wolves or bears?
And sure enough, he met the Big Bear,
But there is nothing to do: he takes off his hat,
And bow to my dear neighbor.
The neighbor extends his paw to him,
And, word by word, they get to know each other,
Then they become friends
Then they can’t separate
And the whole day is spent together.
What did they talk about and what did they talk about?
Or sayings, or some jokes,
And how their conversation went,
I still don’t know the time.
The hermit was taciturn;
Mishuk is silent by nature:
So no dirty laundry is washed out of the house.
But be that as it may, the Hermit is very happy,
That God gave him a treasure in a friend.
He follows Misha everywhere, he feels sick without Misha,
And he can’t praise Mishenka enough.
One day my friends decided to
On a hot day, wander through the groves, through the meadows,
And across the valleys and across the mountains;
And since the bear man is weaker,
Then our Hermit is more likely
Than Mishenka, tired
And he began to lag behind his friend.
Seeing that, Mishka says to his friend like a good guy:
“Lie down, brother, and rest,
Yes, if you want, then pine;
And I will watch over you here at your leisure.”
The hermit was accommodating: he lay down, yawned,
Yes, I fell asleep immediately.
And Mishka is on the clock - and he’s not idle:
A fly landed on a friend's nose.
He fanned his friend;
I took a look
And there's a fly on my cheek; drove away, and the fly again
On a friend's nose
And more persistent from hour to hour.
Here is Mishenka, without saying a word,
He grabbed a heavy cobblestone into his paws,
Squatted down, doesn’t take a breath,
He himself thinks: “Be quiet, I’ll blow your mind!”
And, on a friend’s forehead, there was a fly lying in wait,
What strength do you have - to grab a friend in the forehead with a stone!
The blow was so deft that the skull split apart,
And Misha’s friend stayed there for a long time!

The plot of Krylov's fable is not new. The 17th-century French fabulist J. Lafontaine carried out the same idea in the fable “The Bear and the Gardener.” And, they say, it was thanks to Lafontaine that the phraseology “Disservice” entered many European languages.

Application of the expression “Disservice”

- “In our nervous age, we are slaves to our nerves; they are our masters and do with us what they want. Civilization has done us a disservice in this regard.”(A. Chekhov.)
- “Only one civilian satirical journal tried to defend and justify his behavior, but with these efforts he only did him what is called a disservice.”(V. Krestovsky, “Panurgovo Herd”)
- “In September 1871, some newspaper notified the public about the return of the writer Dostoevsky from abroad and thereby did us a disservice. Our creditors, who had been silent until now, immediately appeared with demands for payment for a long time.”(A. G. Dostoevskaya, “Memoirs”)
- “He praises us too much, the article smells of cheap advertising. Warn him that this is a disservice."(R. Shtilmark “The Heir from Calcutta”)

The phraseology “disservice” is used in cases when a person tries to help someone, but does it so poorly, ineptly and awkwardly that instead of the desired support, it only causes trouble and completely ruins the situation. This happens quite often in life. I. A. Krylov has a fable called “The Hermit and the Bear.” It was thanks to her that this phraseological unit appeared. What are we talking about there?

"The Hermit and the Bear"

At the beginning, Krylov writes that there are situations when we need help, but we should understand that not everyone can provide it properly. You need to stay away from fools, because a fool who wants to do good is sometimes more dangerous than the most evil enemy. They may be doing a disservice. You already know the meaning of phraseological units.

Hermit life

Next comes the story itself, which tells about a hermit who has no family and lives in the wilderness. Of course, if you wish, you can write about loneliness very beautifully. But not everyone can live in such conditions, because most people want to share both grief and happiness with loved ones. The author writes that they may object to him, because it is wonderful in the wilderness, especially if there are meadows, forests, mountains, streams, and emerald grass. Krylov completely agrees with this, but says that all this can quickly get boring if you don’t even have anyone to talk to. Sometimes even betrayal, disservice, and strife may seem less evil than loneliness.

Meet the Bear

So one day the hermit got tired of living away from people. He went into the forest, hoping to meet someone there. But mostly only bears and wolves live there. People rarely visit the forest. And indeed, the hermit met a bear. He politely took off his hat and bowed, and the bear extended its paw to him. That's how they met. After some time, they became real inseparable friends, they could not part even for a few hours. Krylov writes that he does not know what they talked about or how their conversation went. The hermit was silent, and the bear could not be called overly sociable. But, in spite of everything, the hermit was happy that he had found a friend. The friends often walked together, the hermit never tired of praising the bear and being moved by him. He thought that a wonderful time had come in his life. The unfortunate man did not yet suspect that he would soon be rendered a disservice...

Death of a Hermit

One day on a hot day, the friends decided to walk through forests, meadows, plains and hills. Of course, a person is weaker than a wild animal, so after a while the hermit got tired and began to lag behind the bear. He realized that his friend could no longer walk, and invited him to lie down and sleep if he wanted. He also said that he could keep an eye on him. The hermit was only glad of this offer. He sank to the ground, yawned and immediately fell asleep. began to guard his friend, and he had to work hard. So a fly landed on the hermit’s nose, and the clubfoot drove it away. But the annoying insect flew onto my cheek. The bear had barely driven the fly away when it landed on his nose again. How impudent she is! Without thinking twice, the bear took a heavy stone in his paws, squatted down and thought that now he would definitely kill her. At that time the fly was sitting on the hermit’s forehead. And so the bear threw a stone at his friend’s head with all his might. The blow was such that the hermit’s skull split in two, and the unfortunate man remained lying in that place. This is what disservice means.

Parable about disservice

There is also a parable on a similar topic that makes you think about your actions and life in general. One day, a grandfather and grandson were walking around the city, and suddenly they saw a boy whom his father asked to repair the fence, and only after that he allowed him to go play. The poor child's instrument kept falling out of his hands, and the board could not get into the right place. So the boy accidentally hit himself on the finger, and then, angry, threw the hammer away, looking sadly at the children playing. The grandfather's grandson felt sorry for his peer, and he nailed the board to the fence. However, the old man immediately tore it off.

The grandson asked his grandfather in surprise: “How can this be? You often taught me mercy, but now you don’t allow me to help the boy.”

Grandfather replied: “Don’t you understand that this is a disservice? I wanted to instill in you kindness, but in no case hypocrisy. You fulfilled his duties for the boy, which means you deprived him of the opportunity to learn how to repair a fence on his own. But every person needs to have patience and do his job properly. You did him a disservice with your “merciful” act. Don't ever do that again."

Now you know what a disservice is. It is better not to help a person at all than to do this.

Wed. Together with the clapping, they... (the oracles of Russian art) confuse and confuse beginners and not yet established talents... and influence disservice both to Russian art and to his protégés.

N. Makarov. Memories. 3, 1.

Wed. Here is Mishenka, without saying a word,

He grabbed a heavy cobblestone into his paws,

Squatted down, doesn’t take a breath,

He himself thinks: “Be quiet, I’ll blow your mind!”

And at a friend's there's a fly on the stalker's forehead,

Thu O/ there is strength - grab friend stone to the forehead.

The blow was so deft that the skull split apart

And Misha’s friend stayed there for a long time.

Krylov. Hermit and Bear.

Cm. lose your head.

Cm. a helpful fool is more dangerous than an enemy.

• - 1) river Sev. America, to Britain Columbia, flows into the river. Router at 53°53"N and 122°45"...

  encyclopedic Dictionary Brockhaus and Euphron

• - that Unsolicited help that causes harm. This means that a person or group of persons, wanting to help another person or another group of persons, does this extremely ineptly and clumsily, only creating interference in some way. in fact, delivering...

  Phraseological Dictionary of the Russian Language

• - Only food. An inept, awkward service that brings inconvenience, trouble, and harm instead of help. Do… a disservice to whom? friend, friend, fellow student... In our nervous age, we are slaves to our nerves...

  Training phrasebook

• - The primary source is the fable “The Hermit and the Bear” by I. A. Krylov...

  Dictionary of popular words and expressions

• - BEAR, -I,...

  Dictionary Ozhegova

• - BEAR, -I,...

  Ozhegov's Explanatory Dictionary

• - Bear's Head – Old Russian. name of the city of Otepää in Livonia. Tracing paper est. Oterää, Baltic-German Odenрää, Finnish Оhdonрää, Wed. Finnish ohto, gen. p. ohdon "bear", pää "head"; see Oyansuu, Krohn-Festschr. No. 10, page 5...
• - disservice. This is an expression just like German. Bärendienst – the same, Norwegian, Danish...

  Etymological dictionary Vasmera

• - Wed. Together with the clapping, they... confuse and confuse beginners and not yet established talents... and do a disservice to both Russian art and their protégés. N. Makarov. Memories. 3, 1...

  Mikhelson Explanatory and Phraseological Dictionary

• - A disservice. Wed. Together with the clapping, they... confuse and confuse beginners and not yet established talents... and do a disservice to both Russian art and their protégés. N. Makarov...

  Michelson Explanatory and Phraseological Dictionary (orig. orf.)

• - Razg. Joking-iron. Stomach upset, diarrhea. Flg., 193...
• - Arch. Bug. AOS 5, 137...

  Big dictionary Russian sayings

• - Razg. Joking-iron. or Disapproved Inept, inappropriate help that causes trouble. /i> Based on the fable “The Hermit and the Bear” by I. A. Krylov. BTS, 528; Mokienko 1989, 22...

  Large dictionary of Russian sayings

• - ...

  Synonym dictionary

• - stomach upset,...

  Synonym dictionary

• - noun, number of synonyms: 1 inept service, causing only untidiness...

  Synonym dictionary

"disservice" in books

Bear chop

From the book Pages of Diplomatic History author Berezhkov Valentin Mikhailovich

Bear Chop In Nome we sat down on the concrete landing strip. Already from the window it was clear that a large air base was being built here. There were solid buildings all around, construction work was in full swing. They laid next to the existing landing strip

A disservice (Response to N. Evseev)

From the book Heavy Soul: A Literary Diary. Memoirs Articles. Poems author Zlobin Vladimir Ananyevich

A disservice (Response to N. Evseev) In response to my article “S.K. Makovsky is a poet and a man” (“Renaissance”, notebook 79, July 1958) appeared on September 16 in “Russian Thought” an article by Mr. N. Evseev “On criticism and random critics.” For the fact that I dared to openly express my opinion O

Bear Den

From the author's book

Bear's den Since the very morning, snow has been falling in fluffy flakes. Swinging an ax in the cold gives me a cold. They stop letting me into the house so as not to infect the children. Nevertheless, I continue to chop wood. When my day shift ends, Vlad brings me

Bear fun

From the book Slavic rituals, conspiracies and divination author Kryuchkova Olga Evgenievna

Bear fun Not a single Maslenitsa week in nineteenth-century Moscow was complete without a bear show. Bear fun was very popular among all segments of the population of cities, towns, and hamlets. This folk fun drew sharp condemnation

IV. Disservice

From the book Alchemy / Notre Dame de Paris by Hugo Victor

IV. A disservice Quasimodo did not sleep that night. He's just in last time walked around the cathedral. Locking the church gates, he did not notice how the archdeacon passed by him, expressing some displeasure at the sight of how carefully Quasimodo pushed and closed the huge

Bear Mountain

TSB

bear berry

From the book Big Soviet Encyclopedia(ME) of the author TSB

Disservice

From the book Encyclopedic Dictionary of Catchwords and Expressions author Serov Vadim Vasilievich

Disservice The original source is the fable “The Hermit and the Bear” (1818) by I. A. Krylov (1769-1844). The fable tells how the Bear, wanting to serve his friend the Hermit (hermit) and slam a fly that had landed on his forehead, killed the Hermit himself along with it: Here’s Mishenka, don’t

8. "Bear's work"

From the book Health-combat system “ Polar bear» author Meshalkin Vladislav Eduardovich

8. “Bear's work” Exercise I Find a strong tree with a smooth trunk. Imagine that you are very drunk, and, leaning on a tree, begin to work in complete relaxation. Process the tree around with different loci of the body, “flowing” down in an inclination, rising and again

Disservice

From the book Kill the infantile in yourself [How to grow up in three months] author Zygmantovich Pavel

A disservice. That's strange, isn't it? Either I tell you that a horoscope with Feng Shui does not work, that they show what works, then I insist on the dangers of these practices. What kind of nonsense? I’m telling you. There is no nonsense. Everything is very clear and systematic. I just showed individual elements

Disservice

From the author's book

Disservice False concepts about Truth are the source of Evil. So one comrade wanted to help another. He hid the true motivation of his action from people. Well-wishers crawled out and tore their throats, calling for a third term to rule. As it turns out, they wanted to save. Or to be saved? How

Disservice

From the book Literary Newspaper 6466 (No. 23 2014) author Literary Newspaper

Disservice

From the book Proverbs.ru. The best modern parables author Team of authors

Disservice An old man and his grandson walked down the street past a boy whom his father had instructed to fix the fence before going to play. The tool slipped out of my hands, the board did not want to go into place. Having accidentally hit his finger, the boy angrily threw the hammer, looking longingly

A disservice to the subconscious.

From the book Healing with Thoughts author Vasyutin Vasyutin

A disservice to the subconscious. If a suspicious person’s heart pierces, then for him this is a signal - DANGER to life! And he begins to “peer” intently into the heart. Naturally, as a result, he begins to feel it more strongly.©The purpose of material games is

Disservice

From the book All ages and secrets of happiness author Efimov Georgy Mikhailovich

A disservice I recently received a comment on a post where I listed the main areas of life for setting goals (link). The essence of the message is why is there no charity on the list? I’m telling you...You do charity work if as a result of your actions

Help can be different: belated and timely, unexpected and long-awaited, free and selfish. And sometimes it happens that it would be better not to exist at all. Have you ever accepted help that backfired? If yes, then you have been provided disservice.

It is impossible to understand what the bear has to do with it and why it provides some services when you do not know the history of the emergence of phraseological units. We will try to understand this interesting question.

The meaning of phraseology

The expression “disservice” refers to assistance that ends up causing harm rather than benefit. In this case, there is no talk of malicious intent. The assistant acts with good intentions and does not expect to become a source of trouble. But due to his own short-sightedness, and sometimes stupidity, he does not solve the problem, but only aggravates it.

For example, one student invited another to copy the answers to a test from him during an exam. However, the answers contained errors. In the end, both failed the test.

Or a compassionate passerby treated a child to candy, not knowing that the child was allergic to chocolate.

The wife decided to clean up her husband's desk, as a result of which important papers disappeared. And there can be many such examples...

IN Everyday life Such situations occur all the time. This phraseology teaches us to accept and offer help thoughtfully, calculating possible consequences. The main principle is do no harm.

Origin of phraseology

IN ancient india there was an interesting story about a monkey and a stone. The French fabulist Jean de La Fontaine borrowed this plot for his story L'ours et l'amateur des jardins, turning the monkey into a bear. Ivan Andreevich Krylov translated the fable into Russian.

We know it under the name “The Hermit and the Bear.”

In the story, a hermit, a man leading a solitary existence, is tired of loneliness and makes friends with a bear. They walk, but the man gets exhausted and goes to sleep. The bear vigilantly guards sleep, driving away flies from it. Unfortunately, an annoying insect lands on the hermit's nose. The bear, without thinking twice, takes a cobblestone and breaks his friend’s skull, trying to kill the fly.

The fable itself does not contain the expression “disservice”. It was born later, when Krylov’s contemporaries discussed the plot of the fable.

A disservice is an inept, clumsy help to someone, which, instead of good and benefit, brought only grief, harm and evil. This phraseological unit appeared thanks to the famous Russian poet I. A. Krylov, who wrote the fable " Hermit and bear", which was published in 1807. In fact, this expression is not in the verses, but it conveys their exact meaning. In addition, in this fable there are a couple more phraseological units that were remembered not only by contemporaries, but also by their descendants. After some time which have become real sayings:

“That way the dirty laundry isn’t washed in public”

"A helpful fool is more dangerous than an enemy"

Fable The Hermit and the Bear (excerpt)

<...>
Although the service is dear to us in need,
But not everyone knows how to tackle it:
God forbid you contact a fool!
A helpful fool is more dangerous than an enemy.
<...>
The hermit was taciturn;
Mishuk is silent by nature:
So no dirty laundry is washed out of the house.
But be that as it may, the Hermit is very happy,
That God gave him a treasure in a friend.
<...>

Read also: the meaning of the expression Pineapples in champagne

However, the fabulist Krylov is rumored to have borrowed this plot from the French poet Jean La Fontaine, who wrote the poems “The Bear and the Gardener.” This work was published in the 17th century. As they say, in colloquial speech Western Europeans, the expression “Disservice” came about precisely because of La Fontaine’s popular fable.

Use of the phraseological unit "Disservice" in literature

“He praises us too much, his publication resembles a tabloid advertisement. Tell him that he is doing a real disservice” ( "The Heir from Calcutta" R. Shtilmark)

“One of the unknown newspapers notified everyone in September 1871 that the popular writer Dostoevsky had finally decided to return to his homeland and thereby did a disservice to the entire public. Our creditors, whom we had completely forgotten about, immediately appeared demanding that all debts be repaid” ( "Memories" A. G. Dostoevskaya)

"Only one satirical magazine tried to justify him in the eyes of the public, but his efforts caused a backlash, doing a real disservice" ( "Panurgovo herd" V. Krestovsky)