Comparative Construction “Kak Griazi” (Dime a Dozen, Lit. Like Dirt) in Diachronic Aspect

The article is devoted to the diachronic approach of the comparative construction “like dirt” in the modern Russian language. The construction is included, on the one hand, into the group of idioms indicating the large number of objects, and, on the other hand (because of its central component), into the lexical field “dirt” with its negative connotations. The analysis of the frequency and compatibility of the construction in the National Corpus of the Russian Language (RNC) demonstrates its history and development. The first fixation of the structure is at the end of the 19th century. In the 20th century, there were very few literary examples of use until the 90s. The compatibility of the construction was limited to the nomination of people and food. Some 20th century dictionaries mark the structure “like dirt” as regional. However, since 1990, apparently due to freedom from censorship, there has been a significant increase in the use of the structure, as well as an expansion of its compatibility. The peak of the usage falls on the first decade of the 21st century, and after that, we can observe its frequency gradually drop.

comparative constructions, lexical fields, diachronic analysis, corpus linguistics, quantitative analysis