The idiom “disservice” is used in cases when a person tries to help someone, but does it so poorly, ineptly and awkwardly that instead of the desired support, it only causes trouble and completely ruins the situation. This happens quite often in life. I. A. Krylov has a fable called “The Hermit and the Bear.” It was thanks to her that this phraseological unit appeared. What are we talking about there?

"The Hermit and the Bear"

At the beginning, Krylov writes that there are situations when we need help, but we should understand that not everyone can provide it properly. You need to stay away from fools, because a fool who wants to do good is sometimes more dangerous than the most evil enemy. They may be doing a disservice. You already know the meaning of phraseological units.

Hermit life

Next comes the story itself, which tells about a hermit who has no family and lives in the wilderness. Of course, if you wish, you can write about loneliness very beautifully. But not everyone can live in such conditions, because most people want to share both grief and happiness with loved ones. The author writes that they may object to him, because it is wonderful in the wilderness, especially if there are meadows, forests, mountains, streams, and emerald grass. Krylov completely agrees with this, but says that all this can quickly get boring if you don’t even have anyone to talk to. Sometimes even betrayal, disservice, and strife may seem less evil than loneliness.

Meet the Bear

So one day the hermit got tired of living away from people. He went into the forest, hoping to meet someone there. But mostly only bears and wolves live there. People rarely visit the forest. And indeed, the hermit met a bear. He politely took off his hat and bowed, and the bear extended its paw to him. That's how they met. After some time, they became real inseparable friends, they could not part even for a few hours. Krylov writes that he does not know what they talked about or how their conversation went. The hermit was silent, and the bear could not be called overly sociable. But, in spite of everything, the hermit was happy that he had found a friend. The friends often walked together, the hermit never tired of praising the bear and being moved by him. He thought that a wonderful time had come in his life. The unfortunate man did not yet suspect that he would soon be rendered a disservice...

Death of a Hermit

One day on a hot day, the friends decided to walk through forests, meadows, plains and hills. Of course, a person is weaker than a wild animal, so after a while the hermit got tired and began to lag behind the bear. He realized that his friend could no longer walk, and invited him to lie down and sleep if he wanted. He also said that he could keep an eye on him. The hermit was only glad of this offer. He sank to the ground, yawned and immediately fell asleep. began to guard his friend, and he had to work hard. So a fly landed on the hermit’s nose, and the clubfoot drove it away. But the annoying insect flew onto my cheek. The bear had barely driven the fly away before it landed on his nose again. How impudent she is! Without thinking twice, the bear took a heavy stone in his paws, squatted down and thought that now he would definitely kill her. At that time the fly was sitting on the hermit’s forehead. And so the bear gathered his courage and threw the stone at his friend’s head with all his might. The blow was such that the hermit’s skull split in two, and the unfortunate man remained lying in that place. This is what disservice means.

Parable about disservice

There is also a parable on a similar topic that makes you think about your actions and life in general. One day, a grandfather and grandson were walking around the city, and suddenly they saw a boy whom his father asked to repair the fence, and only after that he allowed him to go play. The poor child's instrument kept falling out of his hands, and the board could not get into the right place. So the boy accidentally hit himself on the finger, and then, angry, threw away the hammer, looking sadly at the children playing. The grandfather's grandson felt sorry for his peer, and he nailed the board to the fence. However, the old man immediately tore it off.

The grandson asked his grandfather in surprise: “How can this be? You often taught me mercy, but now you don’t allow me to help the boy.”

Grandfather replied: “Don’t you understand that this is a disservice? I wanted to instill in you kindness, but in no case hypocrisy. You fulfilled his duties for the boy, which means you deprived him of the opportunity to learn how to repair a fence on his own. But every person needs to have patience and do his job properly. You did him a disservice with your “merciful” act. Don't ever do that again."

Now you know what a disservice is. It is better not to help a person at all than to do this.

Disservice

This expression refers to phraseological units whose words do not explain the meaning of the phrase itself. At the same time, we all know what a disservice is called, a service from which, instead of benefit, only harm came to the one to whom it was provided. To prevent you from doing yourself a disservice when transporting animals on an airplane, be careful when preparing transportation documents for your pets http://www.gruztech.net/article/163

This expression came into Russian speech after the publication of Ivan Andreevich Krylov’s fable “The Hermit and the Bear.” The essence of the fable is that the Hermit (or hermit, to make it clearer) became friends with the Bear. One day he lay down to take a nap, and a fly overcame him. The bear tried to drive her away, but it didn’t work. Then Mishka waited for the moment when a fly landed on his friend’s head and jumped away with all my might hit a fly with a cobblestone. The fate of the fly is unknown, but the Hermit’s “skull split apart” and he immediately moved to a better world. In short, Bear wanted the best...

The plot of this fable is quite classic; according to researchers, its original source is an Indian fable in which a monkey appeared. This story otevropil legendary French poet and fabulist Jean La Fontaine (Jean de l a Fontaine - 1621-1695), who made a “translation” into his contemporary language and published many classic stories of ancient authors in the fable genre. La Fontaine called this fable “The Bear and the Gardener.” Thanks to La Fontaine and this fable, the expression disservice entered many European languages.

In Krylov’s version of the fable, this expression does not appear directly, but another phraseological unit, “an obliging fool is more dangerous than an enemy,” did not come into use.

Although the service is dear to us in need,

But not everyone knows how to tackle it:

God forbid you contact a fool!

A helpful fool is more dangerous than an enemy.

You can easily find the fable itself through any search.

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Denoting a service that ultimately resulted in negative consequences for the person to whom it was provided.

According to Max Vasmer's etymological dictionary of the Russian language, this expression, like the German Bärendienst, the Norwegian and Danish bjørnetjeneste, is taken from a fable by Jean La Fontaine. According to Falk-Thorpe, the birthplace of this fable is India, where the place of the bear was originally occupied by a monkey.

The fable was written no later than the beginning of May 1807, since on May 4, 1807 Krylov read it at an evening with A. Khvostov. First published in the Dramatic Messenger, 1808, Part I, No. 17, pp. 142-144.

The fable speaks of a Bear who, while driving away a fly from his brother the Hermit (hermit), out of clumsiness, killed the Hermit himself along with the fly. Krylov’s fable does not contain the words “disservice”, but there is a phrase that has become a proverb in the Russian language: “a helpful fool is more dangerous than an enemy.”

And Mishka is on the clock - and he’s not idle:
A fly landed on a friend's nose:
He fanned his friend;
I took a look
And there's a fly on my cheek; drove away, and the fly again
On a friend's nose
And more persistent from time to time.
Here is Mishenka, without saying a word,
He grabbed a heavy cobblestone into his paws,
Squatted down, doesn’t take a breath,
He himself thinks: “Be quiet, I’ll blow your mind!”
And, on a friend’s forehead, there was a fly lying in wait,
What strength do you have - to grab a friend in the forehead with a stone!
The blow was so deft that the skull split apart,
And Misha’s friend stayed there for a long time!
I.A.Krylov

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Notes

Excerpt characterizing Disservice

Rastopchin, waiting for him to stop at the indicated place, frowned and rubbed his face with his hand.
- Guys! - said Rastopchin in a metallic ringing voice, - this man, Vereshchagin, is the same scoundrel from whom Moscow perished.
A young man in a fox sheepskin coat stood in a submissive pose, clasping his hands together in front of his stomach and bending slightly. His emaciated, hopeless expression, disfigured by his shaved head, was downcast. At the first words of the count, he slowly raised his head and looked down at the count, as if wanting to tell him something or at least meet his gaze. But Rastopchin did not look at him. On the young man’s long thin neck, like a rope, the vein behind the ear became tense and turned blue, and suddenly his face turned red.
All eyes were fixed on him. He looked at the crowd, and, as if encouraged by the expression that he read on the faces of the people, he smiled sadly and timidly and, again lowering his head, adjusted his feet on the step.
“He betrayed his tsar and his fatherland, he handed himself over to Bonaparte, he alone of all Russians disgraced the name of the Russian, and Moscow is perishing from him,” said Rastopchin in an even, sharp voice; but suddenly he quickly looked down at Vereshchagin, who continued to stand in the same submissive pose. As if this look had exploded him, he, raising his hand, almost shouted, turning to the people: “Deal with him with your judgment!” I'm giving it to you!
The people were silent and only pressed each other closer and closer. Holding each other, breathing in this infected stuffiness, not having the strength to move and waiting for something unknown, incomprehensible and terrible became unbearable. The people standing in the front rows, who saw and heard everything that was happening in front of them, all with frightened, wide-open eyes and open mouths, straining all their strength, held back the pressure of those behind them on their backs.
- Beat him!.. Let the traitor die and not disgrace the name of the Russian! - Rastopchin shouted. - Ruby! I command! - Hearing not words, but the angry sounds of Rastopchin’s voice, the crowd groaned and moved forward, but stopped again.

In Russia phraseological unit "disservice" arose as an expression by readers of the main idea of I.A.’s fable. Krylov "The Hermit and the Bear".

But the history of the origin of phraseological units not so clear .

The meaning of phraseology

Disservice – unsolicited help that causes harm instead of benefit

In Krylov’s fable, this meaning is very clearly revealed through the image of the Bear, who so zealously drove away a fly from his sleeping friend, the Hermit, that in the end he hit him in the forehead with a cobblestone, on which the annoying fly was sitting. Fatal outcome...

Apparently, since prehistoric times, we have associated the bear with such qualities as clumsiness, rudeness, simplicity, and unbridledness. Therefore, this phraseological unit turned out to be more intuitive and less dependent on knowledge of its source (fable) than, for example, “Trishkin caftan” by the same Krylov. It’s clear who the bear is, but who Trishka is – not so much.

In foreign languages there are expressions with similar meanings. Among them:

(unintentional) disservice (English)
le pavé de l"ours (French)
Bärendienst (German)

Origin of phraseology

In this case, we are dealing with the author’s phraseological unit, the origin of which is not so simple. As a matter of fact, the fable of I.A. Krylova (1769-1844) “The Hermit and the Bear” is a translation of the fable of the famous French poet and fabulist Jean La Fontaine (1621-1695) “L'ours et l'amateur des jardins” (usually translated as “The Bear and the Gardener”, but more accurately it seems “The Bear and the Lover of Solitude” or “The Bear and the Lover of Nature”) In addition to Krylov, the fable was translated into Russian by Sumarokov (“Friend and Ignorant”) and Khvostov (“The Bear and the Gardener”). So Krylov’s authorship is rather conditional, but the influence of the fable successfully translated by him on the emergence and widespread dissemination of the expression “disservice” is undoubted.

However, if you turn to Wikipedia, then Lafontaine was not the original author of the plot about the disservice: according to Falk-Thorpe, the birthplace of this fable is India, where the place of the bear was originally occupied by a monkey. So if circumstances had turned out differently, this phraseology would be known to us as “monkey service.”

Returning to the fable “The Hermit and the Bear,” it should be noted that two more popular expressions came from it: “an obliging fool is more dangerous than an enemy” and “washing dirty linen in public.”

Examples from the works of writers

In our nervous age, we are slaves to our nerves; they are our masters and do with us what they want. Civilization has done us a disservice in this regard. (A.P. Chekhov, “Duel”)

Dear Mikhail Mikhailovich - your letter confused me greatly, giving me the impression that I had done you a disservice and brought unnecessary confusion into your life. (M. Gorky, letter to M.M. Zoshchenko, October 13, 1930)

He praises us too much, the article smells like cheap advertising. Warn him that this is a disservice. (R.A. Shtilmark, “The Heir from Calcutta”)

Sokolov hesitated: “It feels like, Viktor Pavlovich, that your praisers and admirers are doing you a disservice,” the authorities are irritated. (V.S. Grossman, “Life and Fate”)

So, the “disservice” is not only an example of brevity and figurativeness, but also represents Russian version an expression originally generated by La Fontaine's fable.

For fables, the described situation with “transferable authorship” is quite characteristic . A typical chain is “Aesop’s fable - La Fontaine’s fable - Krylov’s fable.” Moreover, it may very well be that Aesop, in turn, borrowed plots from earlier authors. But history is silent about this.

Meaning of DISER SERVICE in the Phraseology Guide

DIS SERVICE

an inept, awkward service that brings harm and nuisance instead of help. The phraseology goes back to I. A. Krylov’s fable “The Hermit and the Bear,” which tells about the friendship of the hermit with a bear. One day the hermit lay down to sleep, and the bear kept the flies away from him. I kicked a fly off my cheek, it landed on my nose, then on my forehead. The bear took a heavy cobblestone and killed a fly on his friend’s forehead with it.

Handbook of phraseology. 2012