One of the most interesting areas of linguistics is etymology - the science of the origin of lexical units. The stories of their birth and introduction into the vocabulary are sometimes like detective stories, sometimes like jokes …
Meaning of the word “libel”
An interesting explanation is given to this lexeme by V.I. Dahl in his famous work on the interpretation of units of the Russian language. According to the scientist, libel is a “nameless” (that is, essentially anonymous), “abusive letter, diarrhea composition”.
In more modern dictionaries, the character of anonymity already disappears, but the meaning of a slanderous essay, and even with attacks-insults, invariably remains. However, this can be not only a written message, but also a caricature image with the same false and insulting information about a person or group of people, as well as about a political party or social movement.
Interestingly, in the 19th century in Western countries and in Russia the word "libel" had the legal meaning of a false denunciation.
Etymology of the word "libel"
It often happens that there is no unanimous opinion on the origin of a token. The same thing happened with the word "libel". This is the whole story. It is believed that it came from the name of Pasquino. Researchers, however, disagree on their point of view. Some believe that a shoemaker with that name lived in Rome in the 15th century and seemed to mercilessly stigmatize superior persons for their various sins. According to others, Paskvino was either an innkeeper or a barber. Well, others are sure that in ancient times on one of the streets of Rome there was placed an armless remnant of a sculpture that originally depicted some famous person. Opposite there lived an inconspicuous teacher - maestro Paskvino, whose students saw the outward resemblance of the bust to his mentor and called him the same.
There was a sculpture on a wide pedestal and in a very crowded place. This contributed to the fact that soon all sorts of sharp epigrams, caricatures, often outright gossip or slander, sometimes anecdotes, where representatives of the Catholic Church or the government were criticized, began to be glued to it. So everything glued to Paskvino can be considered a libel. Here is a story.
Pronunciation of the word "libel"
This token got into the Russian language indirectly - from Italian through Polish. Naturally, therefore, the word retained the stress characteristic of this language - always on the penultimate syllable, while in German emphasis is placed on the latter: pasquíll - libel. Stress is sometimes deliberately carried over to the end of a word. This happens when they intentionally want to give the statement an ironic meaning: "He again issued another libel."
Our language is replete with words whose emphasis is mobile, which often confuses foreigners studying Russian.
As for the word "libel", it did not affect him. In declension in both singular and plural, emphasis invariably stands on the first syllable.
There is another feature of the pronunciation of this word - the obsolete form of pashkvil. By the way, in Polish it sounds like that. And in Russian classical literature of the XVIII – XIX centuries in this form it is often found.
