How many mysteries the great and mighty Russian language still hides. It seems to be a familiar expression that everyone has heard and is understandable in meaning. And why they say so, and where this or that expression came from, not everyone ponders, but in vain. Sometimes the search for the truth is akin to a detective story. If you don’t know, write it’s gone.
In spoken Russian, there are many expressions that are pronounced in passing, as an additional emotional color. Despite the fact that the expression itself in the context often looks not entirely logical, and sometimes absurd, the Russian-speaking person understands not only the meaning, but also the hidden subtext, and the speaker's attitude to the fact being voiced.
Write is gone - despair and hopelessness, point of no return. At least once in his life, any person uttered this phraseological unit without thinking about its origin.
Where did the expression come from (version one)
It is not true that there are two troubles in Russia. There are other ineradicable misfortunes in Russia - bureaucratic bureaucracy and theft at all levels. As Karamzin complained at one time to Vyazemsky: "If I could answer in one word the question: what is being done in Russia, I would have to say: they are stealing."
The above-mentioned phraseological unit is also associated with this phenomenon. When it was necessary to explain the reason for the lack of goods in the receipts and expense books, and it was not possible to tell the truth, the embezzlers of the state instructed the clerk to mark “lost” in the appropriate column.
On the one hand, a graceful version, but on the other hand, somewhat far-fetched. It is doubtful that at the state level such incidents could become so typical as to enter folklore. And the traditional meaning of the phraseological turnover does not fit into the simulated situation.
In addition, in a slightly modified version, the phraseological unit is found in the Dahl dictionary, as a folk proverb.
Fell - write lost (version two)
The origins of this version lie in a number of sets of medieval laws. An object that fell on the landowner's territory was considered at the legislative level to automatically pass into his ownership and disappeared for the previous owner.
Another source of the formation of phraseological units follows from the same direction. The traditional way of earning some marginal individuals was fishing on the high road, which was severely punished, up to the death penalty.
But there was a clause of the law, according to which a thing that fell to the ground was considered not robbed, but found. Therefore, if during the robbery some thing fell from the cart of the sufferer, it could be considered legally found, was not included in the material evidence and was not subject to return. That is, it could have been recorded as missing.
In modern legislation, there is also a loophole of this kind, which is used by petty train station thieves. One snatches the purse from the victim and throws it on the ground, and the accomplice picks it up and was like that. From a legal point of view - one joked, another found, and the third wrote - it was gone.
