V. I. Dahl considered their use in speech usage as a criterion for selecting material for his collection of Proverbs of the Russian People. It is noteworthy that in modern communication proverbs, as before, are used quite intensively, but some of them, which were popular in the XIX century, are now unknown to native speakers of the Russian language. What are the reasons for forgetting? One of the main functions of proverbs in speech is their didacticism, edification. Any proverb can be prefaced with the words: "It should be remembered that...". In addition, it remains a proverb only as long as its internal form is "transparent". The proverbs "If you like to ride, love to carry sleds"; "Chickens are counted in the autumn"; "Fish is fishless and crayfish" and many others are understandable, since all the words that make up them are clear. It hinders the comprehension of a stable phrase and removes it from the language appeal by "obscuring" the figurative basis: "The content of a proverb is always motivated. The loss of motivation of proverbial content leads to the loss of the proverb itself" (Tarlanov Z. K. Russian proverbs: syntax and poetics. Petrozavodsk, 1999, p. 39). So, among the sayings that have gone into the passive reserve, we can include the proverb "Yell - do not play the pipe". In the minds of Russian people today, the verb yell is primarily associated with the colloquial designation of a loud cry. The proverb initially compared playing the duda, a musical instrument, not with a loud (and, apparently, unpleasant) sound, but with the hard work of a farmer: yelling meant "plowing". The proverb "Smoking is not smoking, so that the horns are in the ground" can also be misinterpreted by modern native speakers of the Russian language, since smoking colloquially means " smoking, taking a drag on a cigarette, cigarette, etc.". In the XIX century, one of the meanings of the verb to smoke, a member of the specific pair to smoke-to smoke, was " to get drunk"thus, sm ... Read more