Letter zu

The hypothesis about the origin of this phrase was expressed by A. V. Zelenin in his article in the journal " Russian Speech ". He believes that phraseologism owes its origin to films about Zorro , the distinguishing sign of which was the letter Z, and that it was originally born in the 1970s and 80s among college students (and only then spread in colloquial language). In his opinion, the letter zu acquired its name due to the replacement of the last two sounds in the name of the Latin letter with the sound " u ". Zelenin believes that this replacement occurred under the influence of the Greek letters mu and nu , the phonetic form of which (in his opinion) was surprising for students ^[1] . The phonetic combination of “zyu” itself is also unusual ^[1] (for example, L.V. Uspensky in 1973, in the book “By the Law of the Letter”, cited the word zyuzya as a rare example of using the syuzy ^[2] ).

The occurrence of the phrase could be influenced by one of the most famous meaningless lines of the cubo-futurist AE Kruchenykh, “Ziu qiu e strom”, often quoted ^[3] along with his own “ holes in holes ”.

Zelenin believes that initially, in the 1980s, the phrase “letter si”, indicating a strange, bent position of the human body, was spread among motorists who spent a lot of time repairing cars ^[1] . Later, in the late 1980s, this speech revolution entered the dictionary of summer residents and began to mean long work leaning on a land plot ^[1] . Such a usage (already without reference to a country house or a car) is widespread not only in colloquial terms, but also in print and fiction:

For some reason, the start-up bends with the letter si and does not want to straighten out.

- Michael Weller . The legend of the naval parade ^[1] .

In these cases, phraseologism began to play the role of a more figurative synonym for the expressions “stand on fours”, “on all fours” and “bent” ^[1] .

In the course of evolution, phraseological unit has moved away from the initial meaning “resembling the letter Z in form” and began to indicate curvature in general ^[1] . Now this expression is used in relation to any object that is in a curved, strange state ^[4] .

In the mid-1990s, expression penetrated journalism, giving rise to bizarre semantic transformations ^[1] .

A number of meanings of the phrase “letter zu” is associated with the transfer of the semantic load from the word “zu” to the word “letter” as the basis. Zelenin described this process as follows: “actualization of the first, nominative, element of combination” ^[1] . “The letter si” begins to denote illegible handwriting, a mysterious sign or simply scribbles ^{[5] [6]} .

In particular, there is a popular computer program, Letter Zu , designed to transliterate Latin letters and their combinations into Russian letters ^[7] .

In this meaning, the expression “letter zu” according to Zelenin’s observations began to generate secondary phraseological units, working as synonyms of expressions from a to z or from alpha to omega ^[8] .

In the "Great Dictionary of Russian Sayings" by Mokienko and Nikitina, you can find an alternative meaning of the phrase: the letter siu - school jargon, a playful nickname for a teacher of mathematics ^[9] .

There is also another consonant young jargon: clumsy siu - a strangely dressed man ^[10] .

Due to the vagueness of meaning, the letter siu has great potential for further language transformation ^[1] .

The expression "letter si" is common in Russian speech in Russia and in the Russian-language press of the former USSR (however, in the latter case, phraseological unit in its semantic meaning is mainly limited to the curved position of a person or object) ^[11] . So, the phraseologism “(zignut) yak letter zu” attracted the attention of Kharkov philologist N. F. Umantseva ^[12] . However, in Russian-speaking circles of far-abroad countries, expression did not take root ^[1] . According to A. V. Zelenin, this is due to the presence of Russian speakers in the environment of the Latin alphabet , which reduces the possibility of a different, ironic look at the letter Z ^[1] .

The first syllable of the name of G. A. Zyuganov is actively used in his nicknames ^{[13] [14] [15]} . In 1999, Dmitry Bykov published an article on the political career of G. A. Zyuganov, entitled "The letter" Zu "." In this article, he writes about Zyuganov as a win-win political figure, in particular noting that his last name evokes "associations with the letter" si ", the famous pose of the radicum" ^[16] . On the 65th anniversary of Gennady Zyuganov, he was given, among other things, trade union workers a description of the “34th letter of the Russian alphabet - the letter ZY” (see figure). The hero of the day said: “The alphabet will be kept intact, and we will use this letter only on holidays” ^[17] .

• Ph.D. A.V. Zelenin. “Letter siu” // Russian Speech magazine. - 2005. - Issue. 1 . - S. 79-83 .