What is the meaning of the saying “They carry water for the offended”? Are you offended? Let us discover the meaning of the saying: they carry water for the offended; they carry water for the offended; etymology.

0 You need to understand that no one really likes touchy and suspicious citizens. After all, if you are depressed because of a simple joke addressed to you, then what kind of friend are you then? As a result, several proverbs were born on this occasion, and we will analyze one of the most popular of them, this They carry water to the offended, you will find out the meaning a little lower.. You ask why? Yes, because we expect a lot of educational information for all tastes and preferences.
However, before you continue, I would like to advise you some interesting news on the topic of phraseological units. For example, what does it mean to show off; which means Get away with your head; the meaning of the expression Hasten to do good; meaning If you cannot change the situation, change your attitude towards it, etc.
So let's continue what does it mean to carry water to the offended?? There are several versions of the origin of this expression; we will touch only on the most popular of them.

They carry water to the offended- means that a person should be able to forgive, and if he constantly walks around offended and dejected, then it looks not only funny, but also stupid

True, having discovered the absence of competitors, some particularly stubborn entrepreneurs decided to greatly inflate the price of their products. The buyers became furious and harnessed this shameless man instead of the filly, forcing him to drag around with this heavy cart all day in the heat.

Second version. It turns out that water is different, and some traders delivered not very clean water, which was collected from a river or pond. It was usually used for watering or cleaning the room. These unfortunate entrepreneurs were obliged to bottle water of different qualities into barrels with different colors. For spring and well water, the barrel had to be white, and for technical water, yellow or blue. However, cunning merchants, in order to earn more, deceived customers by pouring water collected from reservoirs into white barrels. When the forgery was discovered, the retribution followed exactly the same as written above.

Third version. In the time of Peter the Great, a person who was very indignant or offended by something was forced to take a yoke, put buckets of cold water on it, and run until the anger passed.

Be that as it may, no offense will bring you relief, all your negative emotions will accumulate inside you, disrupting the functioning of the heart and other organs, which will ultimately lead to various diseases.

After reading this short article, you learned They carry water to the offended, meaning

Being offended is the most empty, most worthless thing in the world.. Everyone knows about this, but, alas, every day, or even hourly, they find someone or something to be offended by, and then get angry with the whole world. This wasteful and undignified activity exhausts a person and humiliates his dignity.

From time immemorial, it was customary to severely punish the sin of offense, and this was done in public. Thus, the slow-witted offenders were taught a harsh lesson, and those who liked to pout their lips with or without reason a clear example showed what would happen to them.

When and how did the offended people who carry water get into the proverb?

Version one: It is believed that most likely this happened in the Middle Ages, and at that time this expression had nothing to do with people. These offended ones were horses. No, we are not talking about thoroughbred horses, but about those horses that are usually called “restive”. An obstinate horse is superfluous headache to the owner: you can’t trust her with the cart; it’s also dangerous to ride on horseback. Where to put it? There is only one way out: put on blinders, harness him to a cart with a huge barrel and force him to carry water.

Hard, you say? So who is to blame, except the horse itself, there is nothing to demonstrate character. From such a life, the horse quickly turned into a hackneyed nag.

Version two- then the expression “they carry water for the offended” began to be applied to people. At first, not to everyone, but only to those who, like that horse, were engaged in the delivery and sale of water. And the meaning of this expression was still direct. Barrels were placed on all water carriers, marked with different colors. One, let's say blue (white, blue, green, yellow) showed customers that there is clean drinking water here. Another color warned that water was poured here for washing and irrigation. That is, the kind you can’t drink. Of course, the price of water from the second barrel was much lower than from the first. Researchers claim that in many provinces industrial water was delivered free of charge. They only took money for spring water.

Sometimes people who were not very decent were hired to work as water carriers. I wanted to earn money, and the more, the better. Who first decided to charge for dirty water, calling it spring water, history does not know. But history can tell a lot of interesting things about the punishment of careless and greedy water carriers. The most common one looked very comical: the horse was unharnessed, the water carrier took hold of the shafts and himself dragged the cart with two barrels through the streets. Of course, he was missing for a long time, and this was not required. Shame, embarrassment and human ridicule - that’s what the water carriers were afraid of. They say that two or three cases were usually enough to establish an uninterrupted supply of clean water to any city.

Version three- it will remind us of the hot temper of Emperor Peter the Great. The tsar could not stand mischief-makers of all kinds, considered such people unreliable and even dangerous, and never entrusted them with serious matters. And he treated for touchiness in a very original way. For a public demonstration of resentment and its sister, anger, a person received a yoke and a couple of large buckets. He was shown the path from the well to the barrel and forced to run (!) to fill this container. As a result, the stupidity instantly disappeared from my head, and physical fatigue replaced anger. And if the resentment and desire for revenge still did not disappear, then the Tsar Father did not skimp on a second, or even a third, empty barrel.

By the way, Peter the Great formalized this punishment by an official Decree. So it’s impossible to call this method the whim of an autocrat, and it’s also impossible to charge him with tyranny.

The full version of this expression

They carry water on the offended - this is a saying.

Help: a saying most often consists of a phrase, and a proverb is always a complete sentence that has a moralizing meaning.

The whole proverb goes like this:“They carry water on the offended, and fire on the offenders.” Well, with the offended, everything is already clear, but the word “fire” requires clarification. It is clear that none of the victims will simply let go of their grievances, but will hatch plans for revenge. Of course, he won’t get to the king, but the rest will certainly get nuts. This is the very fire that ends this famous proverb so unexpectedly.

Is it harmful to be offended?

Big grievances and small offenses are not only a wasteful exercise. And besides, it’s not at all harmless. Why? Psychologists will confirm that any offense corrodes the soul and breeds cancer cells. So unforgiven grievances are a sure path to illness. Why create a lot of difficulties for yourself? Do you want to carry some water? No? Then we take the following actions:

• - we urgently forgive all (without exception!) offenders, and we do this with all our hearts and sincerely;
• - we extinguish the fire of revenge in our souls and plant (mentally, of course) our favorite flowers at the site of the fire. I already have a whole rose garden there. There are especially many dark burgundy roses. I water them diligently, loosen the soil and never cut them. Roses on a bush are incomparably more beautiful than any luxurious bouquet.

The main thing in this matter is to constantly remember that any offense is a way of manipulation. Don't want to be a puppet? Don’t be offended, especially if you know exactly “the extent of your guilt.”

“They carry water for the offended” is a common expression in our everyday speech. We understand its meaning rather intuitively, and only a few know the history of its origin.

“They carry water for the offended” is a well-known expression. And its meaning seems to be clear: to plunge into resentment is only to harm yourself. But where did this expression come from? And why do they carry water and not firewood, for example? We will find the answer to this question during the reign of Peter I.

In Peter's times, water was transported by water carriers. This was a very good position for a city resident: prestigious and well paid. No one was hired for such a position.
Each water carrier was provided with a horse, cart and equipment. There were several barrels of different colors on the cart. Depending on the color of the barrel, water was poured into it from different sources: drinking water, for household needs, etc.

And everything would be fine: the treasury pays good money, and the position is wonderful, the envy of others. But still there were those who managed to profit here too. I didn’t want to go to distant, cleaner sources - they took water from nearby, polluted ones. There were also those who began to sell water (as they say, under the counter), especially during periods of drought.

When news of this reached Peter I, the sovereign became furious. And he immediately ordered a law to be issued to punish lawless people. And the punishment was this: the horse was unharnessed from the cart, a water carrier was harnessed instead, and he had to carry water around the city himself all day long. The fraudster was not given any payment for that day. If all this was accomplished, the position of the wicked was retained and the horse was returned. And if not, say goodbye to an enviable position.

Need I say that few people refused? The proud water carriers were offended by such a humiliating punishment, but they carried water!

This is where the expression “They carry water for the offended” comes from.

Contents [Show]

The meaning of sayings is carried on the offended

In chapter Linguistics to the question “They carry water for the offended...” Why??? I'm talking about the origin of the saying) given by the author Neuropathologist the best answer is Some kind of unkind saying...
Always confused me.
I also read about the origin of the expression. They trace the change in the phrase and meaning over time: before they said “to the angry,” but if we turn to the origins of the word, it turns out to be “to the zealous.” That would be more logical... :)))
But, they use this expression now, and they probably came up with its current version, probably by people who will not be forced by other people’s grievances to sympathize and sympathize, whose conscience will not respond with remorse, in order to once again provide a soft pillow for her sleeping person... Manipulators, in a word , they changed the saying to suit themselves...
Yes, there really is no point in being offended... Very often the reasons for being offended are in ourselves...
But I don’t use that saying...
Source: Good evening.
Squirrel
Sage
(11561)
I haven’t heard about an unfillable barrel... :((
Yes, this is very figurative and true.
Only who uses the proverb in this context.
Usually they have a completely different meaning. It's a shame. :))

22 answers

Hello! Here is a selection of topics with answers to your question: “They carry water for the offended...” Why??? I'm talking about the origin of the saying)

Answer from Elena Ivanova

and here’s another option: Obstinate, angry horses most often ended up with broken nags in water carriers. After that, all that was left for them was the slaughterhouse.
Considering that the proverb was formed from “they carry water on the angry, but ride on the kind”, the explanation with “horses” seems plausible..)

Answer from Good neighborliness
From the history:
Until the middle of the 19th century, there was no centralized water supply in St. Petersburg. Water for the needs of the population was delivered in barrels by peasant men - water carriers. Almost all city water carriers (about 1000 people) were from the Tver province. Water was carried in carts on horses. And if the water carrier is on foot, then on a sleigh or two-wheeled cart.
By the color of the barrel one could determine the purity of the water and where it was collected. White barrels carried water from the Neva, yellow and green - from the Fontanka and canals. The water in the Neva was clean at that time and was used for drinking. Water from the canals was used for household needs. We collected water ourselves or bought it. Containers were filled in wooden or brick booths using hand pumps.
On October 10, 1858, Alexander II signed the charter " Joint stock company St. Petersburg water pipelines". From that moment on, the construction of the city water supply began, and water carriers eventually fell out of business and remained in history.
Interesting:
The origin of the saying “They carry water for the offended” is associated with St. Petersburg water carriers. The price of imported water in the 19th century was about 7 kopecks in silver per year. However, there were greedy traders who inflated the price in order to make money. For this illegal act, the merchant's horse was taken away and he was forced to carry the barrels in a cart on himself.

Answer from IrinaL
An angry person does not carry pots and an Angry person does not travel with pots. The meaning of the proverbs is quite transparent: an angry (or angry) person is characterized by impetuous movements, and, of course, he will not be able to bring pots without breaking them.
In V.I. Dahl's Explanatory Dictionary we find the proverb: For angry people, water is carried on a stubborn horse. The addition of a stubborn horse reinforces the emphasis on the failure of delivering water using such vehicle. Usually, it fell to docile, slow-witted, hardy horses that grew old from hard work to carry water on farms. Often a water nag died right in the shafts. (!!!-))(With)

Answer from Throw
That’s why they carry it around, because by doing so they help the offended person to highlight and demonstrate to the world what it’s like, they help ensure that the offense does not go away inadvertently, because it has made a nest inside, entangled the brain, obscures the light, dries up the soul. And she also really needs this “water”, this external cart... in order to drag it in the name of this internal Monster.
Origin... it’s already been written here, there’s no mood and no opportunity to rummage and search, that’s not the point. As an option, that’s why they began to say that the offended person “suffers”, and suffering = labor and sometimes incredible work... hardy, therefore, why not... tinker with it.
Another option is water as a synonym for something that needs to be dragged, but you don’t want to drag it yourself. the offended are easy to manipulate, if you pour “water” of pseudo-understanding of his offense, it’s like _Make a fool pray to God, he and…. But here there is already “god” = insult….

Answer from Or me
By the way, it's logical. Although you no longer need to carry anything :) But *water (empty) - around the offended person - *puts everyone in their *rightful place and still *works =))

Answer from Mir Galai
They will get angry and will definitely throw water over themselves :-)) They will knock it over and cool down a little :-)).

Answer from Marina Bunaenko
There was already a similar question:

Answer from Tender sadness
There is an opinion that the offended ones are firefighters, who are often called not firefighters, but firefighters, and therefore they are offended (without reason, of course), and, as you know, they carry water.

Answer from Alexandra Galich
And I thought that this was something from management)) That an offended person is easier to manipulate since he is thrown out of balance. Or they give water to those who need to calm down from resentment.

Here are the two most relevant pieces of text about the history and meaning of this saying, which I found using a search engine:

Ozhegov explains in his dictionary: “Carrying water on someone means taking advantage of someone’s reliability in business or assignments.” Probably, the proverb about angry people arose due to the fact that hard work was a punishment for a person’s touchiness and pride. It is also possible that a person who is consumed by or humiliated by his or her resentment may be easily manipulated.

And it came out, ahem, from here:

Peter I issued a decree - those who publicly expressed their anger or anger were hung with a yoke with buckets filled with water and forced to run around a reservoir. The buckets swayed, water poured onto the “angry” one, and he instantly calmed down..

According to popular belief, pawned dead people, in particular “strangled and drowned people, come into the power of devils.” The devils, first of all, use pawns instead of horses, ride them, obviously taking advantage of their ability to run quickly. From Oryol province. We have several folk stories about how devils ride on strangled horses, and in one case the devil rides at a speed of 500 miles per night.

In Vladimir province. They believe that opoytsy serve as devils instead of horses on their incessant travels around the world.

In Shatsky district Tambov province. in the place where opoyets and strangled people were once buried, now they see some burning candles. There they also see “evil spirits” whistling at night on drunkards and strangled people as if they were their slaves.

To the question of why exactly the devils ride on hostages, the following message from the Tambov province answers: for the dead who died after drinking wine, hanging themselves, or something else, only “not by their own death”, “at midnight the unclean ones ride around the village ”, and sometimes “they carry water”. In the Saratov legend, a man went to hell as a matchmaker and “married a drunken girl for his son, who carries water from the devils with other drunkards.” An old drunkard was walking out of a tavern drunk, fell into the water and drowned: “the devils immediately grabbed him, made him their horse, and now they carry firewood and water on him.”

Here we find an explanation for the popular proverb, which has long since become completely incomprehensible: “They carry water for the angry (offended).” We understand this proverb this way: angry people often end their lives by suicide or even premature and sudden death, after which they become water-carrying horses for the devils.

We hear this expression quite often, and sometimes we repeat it ourselves, wanting to express disregard for the feelings of a person who has been insulted, wittingly or unwittingly. What is the true meaning of the saying “They carry water for the offended”? Having analyzed all the known options, we will try to summarize them and find the most acceptable answer.

A Call to Control Negative Emotions

As you know, anger and despondency are included in the list of the seven deadly sins. Anyone who is often angry and offended harms his own mental health, depletes his spiritual strength, and incurs God’s disfavor. Based on this Christian postulate, let us consider what meaning of the saying “They carry water for the offended” could be meant when someone tried to reason with an overly emotional interlocutor.

Firstly, this could sound like advice to moderate your ardor, calm down. It’s not without reason that even now an upset, worried or overexcited person is offered a glass of water.

Secondly, if we imagine that the saying arose among artisans involved in the transportation of various goods, a warning about the loss of profitable orders could be hidden here. Indeed, who would trust a hot-tempered cab driver to deliver fragile dishes or some other valuable cargo? An angry and unbalanced comrade who is offended by the whole world has a direct path to the water carriers. Even if it spills some water, it’s not a big loss.

And finally, it could be a message calling not to succumb to the provocations of offenders, not to relax, and to remain strong in spirit. Once you make concessions, you allow yourself to be pushed around - they will carry water on you, they will put a collar around your neck, and then, lo and behold, they will sit on horseback - that is, they will completely subjugate you to their will, make you a slave.

Taming obstinate animals

At a time when horses were both a means of transportation, draft power, and arable power, special attention was paid to their character. An easygoing horse is a faithful friend and helper, but an obstinate and angry horse was sent to the backyard and used for various economic works. It is possible that this is where the meaning of the saying “They carry water for the offended” comes from. It is known that one of the continuations of the phrase sounds like this: “...and they ride good horses themselves.”

Developing this version, we can assume that the matter concerned thoroughbred horses that participated in races and exhibitions. Horses rejected for some reason faced an unenviable fate - they were harnessed to a plow, plow, or adapted for transporting various cargoes.

Why did water creep into the proverb? Most of the work was seasonal: the land was plowed in spring and autumn, firewood could be prepared in advance. But the craft of a water carrier required being at his post every day, at any time of the year, enduring heat and cold. What's not a way to tame an obstinate character?

“I’ll give the horse to good hands”

Adhering to the previous point of view, we can once again try to explain what the meaning of the saying “They carry water for the offended” means in relation to horses. Let’s imagine that the konik faithfully served its owners, and when it grew old, it was given to the service of a water carrier. Here the epithet “offended” could mean “worn out”, “tired”.

In the Wild West, driven horses are shot, but in our country they are assigned to unskilled labor, where special speed and strength are not needed. Obviously, it was inappropriate and too wasteful to use young healthy horses for such work.

Unscrupulous St. Petersburg water traders

Some literary sources provide an explanation that is logical at first glance, interpreting the meaning of the saying “They carry water for the offended.” Allegedly, under Peter I, street vendors who were found to be inflating prices or selling technical water instead of drinking water were forced to pick up shafts and deliver water without the help of draft animals. Exactly the same punishment awaited home-grown merchants who treated their customers impolitely or treated their horses cruelly.

It is absolutely not clear how this historical fact influenced the meaning of the saying “They carry water for the offended.” Why are rude people and scammers suddenly called offended? Linguists explain that a transformation of concepts could occur: angry - angry - pouty - offended.

Violent boyars and nobles

Continuing our research, let us return again to Peter's times. They say that the Tsar-Transformer really did not like it when someone publicly expressed their anger and flaunted their grievances. Such unrestrained subjects were supposed to run several times from the nearest reservoir to an empty barrel with a rocker in order to fill the container with icy water and cool down their ardor.

The meaning of the saying “They carry water for the offended” in this case becomes more transparent, if, of course, such events really took place and were not invented by modern jokers.

Variation on the theme of the underworld

Reflected in some religious and mythological writings, the people to this day have an idea about the structure of hell and heaven. As we know, sinners are destined to burn forever in the fires of hell. It is quite possible that various details of this process were also thought out. For example, it was assumed that people who suffer insults and humiliations in earthly life, if they do not go to heaven, will be thrown into less “hot areas” of purgatory. Someone must prepare wood for the devil’s fire or douse the souls of pardoned sinners with water.

Based on this version, we can also reveal this rather interesting meaning of the saying “They carry water for the offended.” Let's call it vindictively comforting. The insulted man resignedly endured the humiliation, but wished his offender punishment in the next world: “You will still remember me when you roast on hot coals. I won’t bring you water!”

Echoes of Slavic mythology

In the works of Dmitry Konstantinovich Zelenin, a famous researcher of folklore in the last century, there are arguments that vaguely resemble previous version. What is the meaning of the saying “They carry water for the offended” according to Zelenin?

According to beliefs that existed in some Russian provinces, suicides, as well as those who died from drunkenness or drowned due to carelessness, entered into the service of evil spirits. And the devils did whatever they wanted with the “offended” - they could harness them to a cart, force them to carry water, and ride them on horseback. In the old days it was believed that if a person did not die a natural death, it meant that he was offended by life.

Condemnation of cruelty and heartlessness

Let’s try to pronounce these words without any subtext, simply as a declarative affirmative sentence: “They carry water for the offended.” The meaning of the saying could well be completely different, even the opposite of what we are used to. Somehow I can’t believe that our ancestors could be ironic about the “offended” (read: orphaned, wretched, deprived).

It is possible that the derogatory sound of the phrase became such relatively recently. Let’s try arbitrarily, without claiming to be the ultimate truth, to recreate the full text of the proverb: “For them, nothing is sacred: they carry water for the offended, they ride on horseback for the kind, they will sell their own mother for a penny.”

It is quite possible that the original message was judgmental, describing the actions of evil, unprincipled, cruel people. The “offended” here should be understood not as those who constantly pout, but as widows, orphans, cripples, and so on.

Take a closer look at the faces of the children depicted in Perov’s painting “Troika”. Do you seriously believe that children carrying a heavy barrel of water are being punished for being too touchy?

You can also remember that in the old days the word “resentment” did not mean feelings of moral torment, but very specific physical actions. In the first lines of A. S. Pushkin’s fairy tale “About the Golden Cockerel” we read:

“Once upon a time there lived a glorious king Dadon.

From a young age he was formidable,

And the neighbors every now and then

He inflicted insults boldly.”

There is a high probability that the “offended” are defeated, oppressed peoples. And, as you know, they did not stand on ceremony with the prisoners.