"Swift jack": the origin of the expression and its meaning

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

"Waves fell down with a swift jack" - a strange phrase, isn't it? It is related to one of the characters in The Twelve Chairs, the famous novel by Ilf and Petrov. Over time, the expression "swift jack" became a phraseological unit. When is it used and what is meant by it? This will be discussed in the article.

Demand for hack

Nikifor Lyapis-Trubetskoy is the character of the famous novel, a hack-worker writer who composes a poetic cycle dedicated to a certain Gavrila. He sells it to various departmental publications. In one of his essays, this "artist of the word" describes the waves falling down with a "rapid jack". According to the researchers, he had real prototypes.

The editors of the publications described in the novel are naive and unpretentious people, they gullibly acquire Lyapis' verses. According to literary critics, the ease in the implementation of his creations is explained not only by the fact that he had a lively character, but also by the existingdemand for hack.

Criticism of opportunism

Critics noted that by creating the image of a hack-worker poet who wrote about the waves that fell with a "rapid jack", the authors managed to rise to a genuine satire. During one of the debates, V. Mayakovsky spoke about the author of the Gavriliada, noting that characters like Trubetskoy often nest in publications rarely visited by writers.

Literary critics believe that by describing the author of the Gavriliad, the satirists branded opportunism, which they hated and which they considered pseudo-revolutionary. However, in their opinion, the point here is not only the resourcefulness of Lyapis-Trubetskoy. Behind his figure one can see what S altykov-Shchedrin spoke of as a “whole psychological structure.”

Versions about prototypes

The question of the prototype of Lyapis-Trubetskoy remains unclear today. There are many different versions.

Most likely, the hack-worker Lyapis is not only a caricature of one of the author's acquaintances and fellow countrymen, it is also a type that reflects the Soviet poet, ready to immediately fulfill every "social order".

In Trubetskoy's unpretentious verses, contemporary writers also saw a parody of venerable authors, for example, V. V. Mayakovsky. And also to Osip Kolychev, who was his follower. The real name of the latter was Sirkes, in which some saw a consonance with Nikifor Lyapis.

There is a version that, creating an imageauthor of "Gavriliada", writers could use an article published in 1927 in the magazine "Smekhach". It spoke about a famous poet who placed poems united by a common theme simultaneously in many publications.

It should be noted that there are other assumptions about the prototype of the indicated hero.

Catchword

Today, the “rapid jack” is called a characteristic flaw in the language of authors who do not have a broad outlook. Or they say so about the shortcomings of speech inherent in self-confident and at the same time narrow-minded characters. They use a word thinking they know what it means, but they don't really.

About what a “jack” is, the dictionary says that it is a mechanism used to lift a load, weights to a small height. This word came to us from the Dutch language. Its outdated version in Russian is “dumokracht”. In this form, it is mentioned, for example, in the Naval Charter of 1720

Can a jack be "swift"? Let's figure it out. If you take a hydraulic jack, then oil is pumped from a small cylinder to a large one using a handle. From this, the latter slowly rises up. After the work is completed, the check valve must be opened, then the large cylinder will quickly lower.

With a certain design of the valve and the weight of the object that is being lifted, the movement of the jack may well turn out to be swift. At the time when Ilf and Petrov lived, there was alsomechanical jack Peugeot, called sports. It could be lowered by pulling the latch. And he certainly fell rapidly. Such a mechanism crippled a considerable number of athletes, as a result of which it was banned.

So with regard to the swiftness, Lyapis-Trubetskoy was right. But as for the waves, it is unlikely that they can fall with a "rapid jack", rather, a cascade.

Several examples

It should be noted that in the literature "swift jacks" are not so rare. Here are some examples:

1. Zakhar Prilepin has a phrase that one of the heroes wriggled in the water like a nit. Nits are lice eggs that cannot squirm in any way. From the same author, you can find other blunders, for example, blueberries collected in the ground, or mountain ash - in July.
2. Here's another "biological" puncture. Peas are often referred to as pods when they are actually beans.
3. The expression "to the native land" is almost universally found both in everyday life and in literature. The correct word would be “to the native penates”, since the latter are not a house, but the Roman deities who are the guardians of the hearth.
4. The phrase "eared tomatoes" is very common in journalistic circles. Now it is difficult to say where it came from, but it is used when they want to point out an overly pretentious speech or text.

Unfortunately, such examples are endless.