Measure on your yardstick: the meaning and origin of the expression

When we want to say that a person judges others by his own actions, we say that he measures all by his own yardstick. The meaning of this expression lies in a well-known historical fact, which explains why arshin, not a foot, sazhen or span. What is so special about this ancient Russian measure?

There are two judgments - mine and wrong

The phrase "measure on your own yardstick" before 1918 had a very concrete meaning. In the process of measuring arshins, a wooden ruler, a seller and a buyer participated.

Now, when this measure has long ceased to be a part of the overall metric system, it is difficult to find the reason for comparing a person with a piece of wood.

If they say that someone has got used to measure everything on their yardstick, then the meaning of these words is given to disdain. So judge about who does not want to listen to someone else's opinion, assess life situations from the height of his bell tower, seeks to give the events the color of his own perception. No matter how obvious the arguments of opponents, this person takes out his own arshin from behind his bosom, and it is impossible to convince him that he is wrong.

"Carelessly feminine caresses believed / And the arshin his predecessor / Human honor and conscience measured ..." - so correctly described Mikhail Yurievich Lermontov egoism of his hero, using personal perception in relation to all those around him.

Eastern elbow: how different it was from the Russian

Until the beginning of the sixteenth century, arshin was a curiosity for a simple Russian person, and this interesting overseas word sounded exclusively in merchant slang. The imported from Persia, Turkmenia, Azerbaijan thin, colored with a shiny thread of cloth, the Russian elbow could not measure, but the word from the Turkic dialect "arshin" (in fact, the same elbow) as much as possible had to court.

However, the people learned to pronounce the foreign word not immediately, because there was nothing to it. Simple cuts of canvas and calico merchants still cut off, measuring the value from its own elbow joint to the fingertips. Another thing is the expensive silk of the east. At this point the merchant surprised the buyer with an unprecedented wooden device, which he used with agility. The first rulers were carved, with many ornaments, but, as we shall see later, they did not help as a yardstick.

Arshin for sale, arshin for purchases

It is not hard to imagine what was going on in the shops of the red goods, when each of the textile traders acquired their own yardstick, the length of which was not regulated by any standards.

Cut out the yardstick in the villages, where the only model was the hand of the master, and there were not any honest orders ... Every shopkeeper interested in selling less, but getting more, the benefit was in such a ruler that every tenth of arshin would go to Favor institution.

"Every merchant measured his arshin" - the meaning of this expression was manifested in the discontent of buyers. How honest buyers and deceived buyers learned to restore justice - let's talk further.

Your elbow is closer

The state struck a real blow to the shopkeepers' pocket when the official value was established behind the running gauge of length. The expression "measure to your own yardstick" has acquired a new connotation, because now anyone could buy cloth, laces or other accessories, demanding from the clerks the use of their own line. There was no right to prevent this from either the owner of the shop or the clerks. Only it remained to them, groaning, to watch, that the consumer arshin was not much longer than their own.

A common man or bulk purchasers became the norm when entering a merchant's shop to get from his bosom an ordinary smoothly planed gauge or a patterned ruler divided by tops - the main thing is that both are 71 cm. The merchants, accustomed to free trade conditions, The fact was met with tense, but endured.

The will of the king

The collapse of great arshin's self-will came closer to 1648, when the decree of Alexei Romanov, tired of the pilgrimage of deceived people, was decided - to legalize the yardstick measure. Special, well-measured arshins were produced in the form of branded iron products or wooden ones, but with obligatory iron staples on both sides of the segment, on which stamps were also marked. The cost of the state cut of 16 vershoks was set at 60 kopecks. The price was considerable for those times and obligated regular monitoring of trading establishments to check the availability of the state line.

Some historians tend to believe that the famous merchant revolt of the designated year occurred precisely because of disagreement with such "steep" measures. The merchants urged the possibility of continuing to measure on their yardstick. The meaning of the phrase, however, has gone so far into the people that the return to such an absurdity became impossible.

Of folk wisdom

Summing up, we will say that arshinnoy equalization of the human character is not new. The lexical meaning of the expression "to measure at one's own yardstick," that is, to transfer one's own vision to the situation or to others, without regard for their opinion, significantly echoes with other Russian proverbs. For example:

• "Equal to equalize" means the maximum depersonalization of human or other factors relative to the situation.
• "Everyone in their own way" - this proverb has two meanings, one of which is to adjust the situation to a comfortable position without regard for the opinion of others.

And what is noteworthy: even after several centuries, the meaning of the lexical meaning "to measure by one's own yardstick" was not lost, although it is used less and less often.