Burn your nails

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Burn on the nails (also: burn under the nails , older forms: burn on the nail , on the nails , in the nails ) is a phrase in the German language with the meaning "to be very urgent". Example sentence: "The matter is burning on my nails".

Linguistic development

The phrase first appears in the 16th century, in a comparative collection of Latin, Greek and German proverbs by Eberhard Tappe , who explains the Latin phrase res ad triarios rediit (roughly: “It has come to the limit, now the last resort has to be found are ”) as a 'very similar' expression:“ the kertz is vff den nagel branded ”(1539). This is not a learned new formation of Tappe, but according to his information about a coinage that was 'popular with the Germans among the people' at the time (“ hodie apud Germanos uulgo celebratum ”). In a slightly different form (“ Die kertz ist auff den nagel ver brant ”) it appears soon after in Sebastian Franck's collection of proverbs from 1541 and in the 17th century again in accordance with Tappe in the poetic collection of proverbs by Eucharius Eyering (1601) and below Reference to Tappe in Johann Gerling's commentary on the Adagia of Erasmus : “ The kertz is branded on the nail ” (1649).

It is documented not only in collections of proverbs but also in practical use as early as the 16th century, for example in letters from Count Johann VI. von Nassau Dillenburg , who does not speak of a candle, but of " fire " (1583) or " liecht " (1591), which burns "( us ) on the nail ", as in a legal pamphlet published anonymously in 1652 the Ravens Berger government Council Thomas Schlipstein of talk is that someone as a result of wasting his possessions " the liecht zimlich auff the brand gebrant is".

In the 18th century the idiom became widely used in preaching , historical and fine literature, and found its way into translation dictionaries. In terms of content, it is used with reference to military, political, financial, health and other emergencies, here especially in the spiritual area sometimes also in connection with the emblematic idea that human life " fades away like a lit candle ". In the linguistic form, the idiom is only used sporadically, especially in the area of ​​sermons, in the addition of older collections of proverbs, with a candle or a (candle) light that burns down on the nail , but mostly as a freely varied idiom , in which the candle as a more general figurative expression " the fire " is replaced by a no longer metaphorically circumscribed abstract such as " the need " or the impersonal expression " it (burns)", also often instead of the singular "on the nail" the plural “on the nails” and then as a preposition instead of on occasionally “ in the nails” and “ under the nails”. The directional idea of lowering firing "on the nail," or "on the nails" here occasionally since the mid-18th century already been replaced by the notion that something ( " Fire " or " it ") "on the nails n “Burns.

In the literature of the 19th century, the proverbial form of the 16th / 17th appears. Century with the explicitly burning "candle" still predominantly in collections of proverbs as a takeover from the older predecessors, but orally it seems to have survived. By Joshua Eiselein it was in 1840 in the form of " The Kerzlein me up on the nail burned " led vernacular 'still alive as in, and especially for the Aachener room was the older version 1886 in the dialectal form " In doem has de KETZ agene [= on the] nail ”registered. Otherwise, the literary usage of the 19th century continues that of the 18th in its various variants, with the increasing dominance of the plural form “ on the nails ”, to which the new variant “ under the nails ” has been added since the beginning of the century .

It was only in the course of the 20th century that the phrase solidified in its current form, in which the impersonal phrase “ it burns” is predominantly used or the “burning” thing (a matter, a problem, a topic, as a grammatical subject without a metaphorical description) a question etc.) is mentioned directly by the name and mainly the plural forms “on the nails” and “under the nails” compete with each other. While in older times it also and especially served to describe an external or material distress - military or political danger, the final stage of an illness, financial hardship (almost " burned down ") - the meaning of " on. " burn the soul ”and thus more focused on the inner urge.

Theses of origin

The idiom occurs in a similar form in Hungarian as well as in Russian and other Slavic languages. It is linked to a popular folk tale with Serbian and Bulgarian evidence, according to which the phrase arose after a wicked mother-in-law tried to test the obedience of her son's bride on the evening of the wedding by holding a candle and keeping her silent commanded: the bride kept the silence, even when the candle burned down to her nails, and kept it for a whole year.

Eiselein (1840) wanted to derive the German idiom from a "custom" "to stick little wax candles on the nail of the thumb in churches and to glow while reading". In the original pictorial conception, it would therefore not be a candle held between the fingers, but a candle glued to the thumb, which linguistically fits in well with the singular form “ on the nail ” of the oldest evidence and gives it a literal, concrete meaning would lend, while later development interprets the singular as a paraphrase for “the nails” (as a synecdoche 'singularis pro plurale'). However, Constantin von Wurzbach (1863) raised reservations about the presumption of the alleged 'custom'. However, the explanation has been considered worth considering or accepted in dictionaries and other literature until recently.

According to a suggestion by Friedrich Seiler (1922), the phrase should instead, similar to someone's thumbscrews and sit on hot coals, come from the legal and judicial area, namely to be traced back to a medieval torture practice in which glowing coals were placed on the fingertips of the Inquisit . Since the oldest evidence of the expression in the 16th century (Tappius, Franck) each expressly speak of a candle, this approach is ruled out for them. In early modern literature, however, the practice of driving a fuse, a stick of sulfur or a pine chip under the nails and then setting it on fire is often described as a practice of torture, and this could have contributed at least to a secondary extent to the development of the younger variant “ burning under the nails ”.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Werner Scholze-Stubenrecht / Wolfgang Worsch (editorial processing), Duden - Redewendung. Dictionary of German Idiomatics (= Duden , Volume 11), 3rd, revised. Ed., Dudenverlag, Mannheim [u. a.] 2008, p. 540
  2. ↑ a b Eberhard Tappe, Germanicorum adagiorum cum latinis ac graecis collatorum Centuriae septem , Wendelin Rihel, Strasbourg 1539, I, x, 6, fol. 31r
  3. ^ Sebastian Franck, Proverbs, beautiful, wise, glorious Clugreden , Christian Egenolff, Frankfurt am Main 1541, part II, fol. 21v
  4. ↑ Eucharius Eyering, Proverborum Copia , Volume 1, Grosianus [Bartholomäus Hörnig], Eisleben 1601, p. 349 (on “Das Wasser ist jhm ins maul gangen / Res ad Triarios redijt”): “If one is in the highest need / Vnd sheer has no help or salvation / They say this proverb is well known / The Kertz is on the nail gbrand "
  5. ↑ John Gerling, Sylloge Adagiorum aliquot Desid [Erii] Erasmi Roterodami aliorumque , Severin Matthew, Leiden 1649, p 27 to "Ad triarios res redijt" with reference to "Tapp [ius]"
  6. ↑ SWR: 1000 answers, a comment by Rolf-Bernhard Essig: What is correct: "It burns my nails" or "It burns my nails"?
  7. ↑ Guillaume Groen Van Prinsterer (ed.), Archives ou correspondance inédite de la maison d'Orange-Nassau , Series I, Volume VIII, S. and J. Luchtmans, Leiden 1847, p. 285 (letter to Wilhelm Ludwig von Nassau- Dillenburg , from November 1583): "Just think, if the fire burns on our nails, we will have to wake up publicly and perhaps with harm we will have to be funny"; Heinrich Bott, Establishment and Beginnings of the Neustadt Hanau, 1596–1620 (= publications of the Historical Commission for Hesse and Waldeck, 30), Volume 1: The establishment of the Neustadt Hanau, 1596–1601 , Elwert, Marburg 1970, p. 165 (from a letter from Johann to the same dated July 19, 1597): "until the light has burned on the nail and it has come first"
  8. ↑ Thorough deduction, ahn instead of manifestos, of sovereignty / hereditary justice / judges / and rights / So the heart of Cleve / Gulich / and Bergh / as Graven zu Ravenßberg / [et] c. In the place of Vorden / zu behören / , Jakob von Biesen, Arnheim 1652, p. 112: "Your relatives and their relatives / who, because of their ancestral hopes and opulence, mostly pass on their guttle / that they slightly burned on the nail"
  9. ↑ a b c Heinrich Venedien , Fruchtbaren Himmels-Thau zur Erquickung der Hertzen , Part II, Johann Engelent, Cologne 1726, p. 24, ibid. P. 28: “Probably there are a number of them present who the Kertz already bit on the nail is "; Gerhard Tersteegen , clergy and edifying letters on the inner life and true essence of Christianity , Volume 1, Part I, Peter Daniel Schmitz and Christian Pohl, Solingen 1773, p. 31: “We must, beloved sister! to see our outer life as a candle that will soon be burned on the nail, and that will soon be lost in invisibility "
  10. ↑ a b Celander (pseudonym) , Die ververtte Welt oder satyrischer Roman , Peter Marteau estate heirs , Cologne 1718, p. 520: "So burns for him (...) the light as one uses to speak in the proverb right on the nail", quoted in Lutz Röhrich, Das große Lexikon der proverbitlichen sayings , Volume 2, Herder, Freiburg 1992 ( ISBN 3-451-22082-2 ), sv “Nagel”; Heinrich Venedien , Fruchtbaren Himmels-Thau zur Erquickung der Hertzen , new edition, Part II, Johann Engelent, Cologne 1744, p. 287: “You have to appear at the beginning of the evil, sings the old rhyming poet Ovidius, and the Kertz nit even let it burn a bit on the nail: Principiis obsta; serò medicina paratur, dum mala per longas invaluere moras ”; Franz Hunolt , Christian Morals Teaching About Evangelical Truths , Martin Veith, Augsburg 1746, p. 362: "As when he wanted to say: there is not long time to talk here, the Kertz is burned on the nail"
  11. ↑ a b c Auguste J. Buxtorf, Nouveau Dictionnaire françois-allemand , p. 411 sv “Nagel”: “It burns my nails: prov. La necessité presse; je suis dans une pressente [urgente] necessité ”; Matthias Kramer, Nieuw Woordenboek der Nederlandsche en Hoogduitsche Taal , 3rd edition, Johann Friedrich Junius, Leipzig 1768, p. 230 sv "Nagel": "It burns me on the nails, de nood dringt, perst my"; Johann Christoph Gottsched , Le maître de la langue allemande, ou Nouvelle grammaire allemande méthodique et raisonnée , 6th edition, Amand König, Strasbourg 1769, p. 555: “Je suis dans une pressante nécessité: It burns me on the nails”; Alain-René Lesage , Gil Blas from Santillana. Newly translated , Volume 5, Christian Friedrich Himburg, Berlin 1779, p. 268: “If it burns on your nails, the old man said. Great, I say; and if I am not so happy soon to find shelter, I must either starve to death or become one of your colleagues ”; Karl Müchler, Lexicon of Anecdotes for Readers of Taste , Volume 2, Siegismund Friedrich Hesse, Berlin 1784, p. 20: “Captain, tell me honestly, does the king get on the nails? If it burns him, take my son and me too ”;
  12. ↑ a b Christian August Salig , Complete History of the Augspurgische Confeßion , Part III, Rengerische Buchhandlung, Halle 1735, p. 948: "And because the fire might burn on his nails, he now promised to be pious and agreeable"; Samuel Schaarschmidt , Medicinische und Chirurgische Berlinische Woche Wochen Nachrichten, Volume III, Berlin 1742, p. 167: “But don't look for a doctor rather than urge you to do it, and the fire burns on your nails”; August von Kotzebue, Armuth und Edelsinn , Paul Gotthelf Kummer, Leipzig 1795, p. 34: "He was poor, anemic, and was supposed to pay debts, the fire burned his nails";
  13. ^ A b Johann Peter von Ludewig, Explained Germania Princeps , without publisher information , Frankfurt am Main / Leipzig 1746, p. 373: "But since the German princes hesitated too long to accept the offer (...): this annoyed the king so much that afterwards he did not come until the fire burned under their nails "
  14. ↑ Anonymous, Secret letters from the portfolio of the Franconian embassy murdered in Rastadt , without publisher's information , Plittersdorf 1799, p. 235f .: “But the hardship burned me on my nails; because my last one was at stake "
  15. ↑ Johann Timotheus Hermes, Sophiens Reise von Memel nach Sachsen , Volume 6, Johann Friedrich Junius, Leipzig 1778, p. 704: “But if the light burns in your nails, (...) Moliere says: 'Vous l'avez voulu, George Dandin! '"
  16. ↑ Anonymous, Die Wolfahrt von Europa, viewed in a precarious state , without publisher's information, Cologne 1758, p. XIIIf .: “as the danger in general [is] (...) and everyone (...) the fire, as they say, on burns your nails ”; anonymous, contributions to the modern history of the state and war , No. 131-134, Johann Christian Schuster, Danzig 1762, p. 436: “In the meantime the fire was burning on the nails, and Louis XIV's things went so wrong that it almost came close that was over ”; Friedrich Schiller , letter to Christian Gottfried Körner dated November 14, 1788, ed. by Karl Goedeke, Schiller's correspondence with Körner , 2nd, exp. Ed., Veit & Comp., Leipzig 1878, p. 233: “The fire is burning Wieland on the nails, and he is beginning to need me very much”; Karl Friedrich Benekendorf, empirical treatise on the various epidemics and diseases of cattle , 2nd edition, Johann Pauli, Berlin 1790, p. 105: "where the (...) neighbors are literally on fire"; Karl Alexander Herklots , Operettas , Vossische Buchhandlung, Berlin 1793, p. 209: “It is high time to look around for a buyer for your property. When people only find out that we are on fire - "
  17. ↑ a b Josua Eiselein, The Proverbs and Speeches of the German People in Old and Modern Times , Friedrich Wagnerische Buchhandlung, Heidelberg 1840, p. 371, cf. P. 485
  18. ↑ Matthias Schollen , Aachener Sprichworte und Spelling , in: Zeitschrift des Aachener Geschichtsverein 8 (1886), pp. 158–208, p. 184, no. 509
  19. ↑ a b Allgemeine Litterarischer Anzeiger , Volume 5, No. 56, April 8, 1800, Col. 551: "There are also people who cannot be brought to work until the fire burns under their nails" ; Heinrich Bauer, Complete Grammar of New High German Language , Volume 4, G. Reimer, Berlin 1832, p. 723: “With this figurative meaning of the personal verb, one could be doubtful whether it should mean: the fire is burning me or me under or on the nails. (...) the fire is burning (...) under, on the nails "; Bohemia , born 1843, No. 3, January 6, 1843: "He can only compose when, as they say, his nails are on fire"; Heinrich Bauer, Systematic Handbook of the German Language , Second Half, AW Hahn, Berlin 1848, p. 302: “The fire is burning me on, on, under my nails”; Philipp Friedrich Hermann von Klencke , gleanings in and outside of me , Christian Ernst Kollmann, Leipzig 1856, p. 43: "It is really hard for me to expose this fisherman"; Otto Baron Digeon von Monteton , singer and knight , part 1, Gebrüder Baensch, Magdeburg / Leipzig 1858, p. 276: “There is still time (...) to bring the money, because it burns like fire under my nails as long as it is is in the house "; Adelbert Heinrich von Baudissin , Peter Tütt. States in America , A. Mentzel, Altona [u. a.] 1862, p. 152: "The widow's nails are on fire until she sees the contract signed"; Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Wander, German Dictionary of Proverbs , Volume 1, FA Brockhaus, Leipzig 1867, Col. 1006, No. 345: “Dat for brennt em op de Nögel. ( Ukermark .) The fire burns his nails; also: under the nails. He is in the most urgent danger and need "
  20. ↑ Zsigmond Simonyi, Német és magyar szólások , Franklin-Társulat, Budapest 1896, p. 263: “ If the fire is already burning on your nails : Ha már a körmére égett a dolog. - The matter burns on my nails (...): Körmömre ég a dolog “; Tamás Forgács, On the syntactic valence of Hungarian phraseologisms , in: Finnisch-Ugrische Mitteilungen 21/22 (1999), 49–71, p. 60: “vmi a körmére ég vkimek [something burns jm. on the nails ] = 'sb. is under time pressure '"
  21. ↑ Adolf E. Graf, Idiomatic idioms and idioms of the Russian and German languages , 4th, to add a night. Ed., Niemeyer, Halle 1962, p. 148
  22. ^ Friedrich Salomo Krauss, depictions from the area of ​​non-Christian religious history , Volume 2, Aschendorff, Münster 1890, p. 9
  23. ↑ Cf. Constantin von Wurzbach, Historical Words, Proverbs and Sayings in Explanations , JL Kober, Prague 1863, pp. 258–261 (No. Let burn down to the nail), here p. 258f., Who in turn invokes the nail wants to interpret the Lower Austrian dialect as “Neige, Rest”, a meaning that in Austrian u. a. also appears in Nestroy and can possibly be traced back to the remains of the drink at the acid test (cf. Johann Nestroy, Complete Works: Historisch Kritische Ausgabe , Volume III, 3, edited by Sigurd Paul Scheichl , Jugend und Volk, Munich [among others] 2004, p . 468 to 180/25); also rejecting Carl Müller, A dictionary of folksy language , in: Journal for German Lessons 13 (1899), pp. 13–38, here p. 34, who instead interprets the nail as the thorn on which the candle is stuck. Both interpretations were later no longer pursued.
  24. ^ Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Wander, Deutsches Sprich emphasis Lexikon , Leipzig 1867, Col. 862, No. 45; S. Hetzel, How the German speaks. Phraseology of the German language , Grunow, Leipzig 1896, p. 222 on “Nagel - It burns on the nails”: “Monks tend to keep wax candles glued to their thumbs during morning mass. If the candle burns down, it will burn on the nails, the situation will be embarrassing, unbearable ”; see. also Leo Sillner, Know where from: Original handbook of German-language words and idioms , Societäts-Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. 1973, p. 211; Lutz Röhrich, The large lexicon of proverbial sayings , Volume 2, Herder, Freiburg 1992, sv "Nagel", Werner Scholze-Stubenrecht / Wolfgang Worsch (editorial editing), Duden - idioms. Dictionary of German Idiomatics (= Duden , Volume 11), 3rd, revised. Ed., Dudenverlag, Mannheim [u. a.] 2008, p. 540
  25. ↑ Friedrich Seiler, Deutsche Sprichwortkunde , CH Beck, Munich 1922, p. 248: “ Something burns on your nails (he feels compelled to do something immediately and as quickly as possible) probably stems from the burning of the fingertips from the glowing coals placed on it "; Lutz Röhrich, The great lexicon of proverbial sayings , Volume 2, Herder, Freiburg 1992, sv “Nagel”; Werner Scholze-Stubenrecht / Wolfgang Worsch (editorial processing), Duden - idioms. Dictionary of German Idiomatics (= Duden , Volume 11), 3rd, revised. Ed., Dudenverlag, Mannheim [u. a.] 2008, p. 540
  26. ↑ Johann Conrad Caspart, General War Law Instruction , Johann Christoph Erhardt, Stuttgart 1746, p. 787: “One takes lunats, sulfur sticks under the nails of the fingers, sets them on fire”, cf. Germanus Philoparchus (Christoph Heinrich Schweser), The Intelligent Officials Auserlesener Criminal Proceß , Gabriel Nicolaus Raspe, Nuremberg 1766, p. 610; Siegismund Justus Ehrhardt , Presbyterology of Evangelical Silesia , Part II, Main Section 1, Johann Gottfried Pappäsch, Liegnitz 1782, p. 688