In everyday communication, a person often uses stable phrases, the words of which, individually, do not directly relate to the meaning of the context. And the phraseological unit itself sometimes sounds just wild. For example, the expression "lead by the nose."
Russian sayings - a storehouse of wisdom and laconicism
Phraseologisms, sayings in their essence, in living and written speech, always give an expression an additional flavor, expression. But only on condition that the speaker and the interlocutor are aware of the meaning of the statement. Otherwise, it is easy to "get screwed" and be publicly ridiculed.
To skillfully use what translators usually call "untranslatable puns", you need to know the history of the word combination. Of course, in order to understand the meaning of the expression, roughly speaking - “to translate it from Russian into Russian”, it is quite possible to limit ourselves to looking at the Dictionary of phraseological synonyms of the Russian language. But in order to fully feel the inner meaning of the saying, it is necessary to find out the nature of its appearance and trace the history of the development of expression in time. Often, phraseological units in the process of use in speech acquire additional shades, expanding the scope of their application. This is precisely due to the incessant linguistic creativity that comes from specific people: writers with a keen sense of the language, as well as numerous unknown talented nuggets from the people - jokers and merry fellows.
Leading by the nose is not just deceiving
In the Educational Phraseological Dictionary of 1997 (authors: E. A. Bystrova, A. P. Okuneva, N. M. Shansky) the expression "lead by the nose" is interpreted as: "To deceive, mislead, promise and not fulfill the promise."
Synonymous expressions will be: "Rub / rub in glasses, circle / circle around the finger, let / show off." As a version of the origin of the turnover, there is a story with gypsies driving a bear in the market and entertaining the crowd. To coerce the beast into the necessary actions, they pulled the ring threaded through the nose. Thus, "they made him do tricks, deceiving with promises of handouts."
For example, they gave him a fee for performing a trick, there was no deception of the bear here. Rather, they deceived the public, convincing them that the bear was doing somersaults, ostensibly for a cookie, and not because it was trying to avoid pain. Thus, "to lead by the nose" is to deceive, passing off one thing for another, trying to make the main reason invisible.
To lead by the nose is not to deceive, but to deceive for a long time. This is a whole long-term operation. “He leads you, like a looper, by the nose, but you don’t notice,” they say to a person who believes promises and ostentatious actions, not seeing, and sometimes not wanting to see, the background.
