There is a legend that the phrase “put by the collar” and the accompanying gesture - a snap on the neck or a blow to the throat with the back of the hand - appeared thanks to one decision of Peter I. We found out whether this is really so.

The phraseological unit “put it by the collar” means “get drunk.” There are several versions circulating on the Internet explaining the origin of this phrase. According to one of them, Peter I decided to reward the best ship carpenters for their work and issued certificates that allowed them to get free drinks in a tavern or tavern. Everything would be fine, but the artisans often lost their letters and turned to the king for a duplicate. And then Peter I, as an alternative, ordered that each worker be branded on his neck or collarbone. According to another version, Peter I came up with brands to prevent workers from moving to other jobs. As compensation, the mark on the body gave the right to drink a glass of vodka for free in any establishment in St. Petersburg. One way or another, the carpenters, in order to show the “royal letter,” unbuttoned the collar of their shirt and pointed to the brand with a click on the neck.

This version has no documentary evidence, so the explanation proposed by the Soviet linguist looks much more plausible, Doctor of Philological Sciences V. V. Vinogradov. In the book "The History of Words" he writes: “The humorous expression is “put by the tie”, less often “passed by the tie”" in the meaning of “drinking something intoxicating, being tipsy” is not used very often in modern colloquial language. <…> As the word “tie” shows", this expression came from the speech of the privileged classes; the image - to lay - indirectly hints at the military environment as a place of its wide distribution (cf. to lay a charge, a mine, etc.)"¹.

And Vinogradov turns out to be right, because not only the approximate time of the phrase’s origin is known, but also its author. He was a certain guard colonel Raevsky (not to be confused with the hero of the war of 1812 Nikolai Raevsky). This is how the poet, publicist and statesman P. A. Vyazemsky: “He was a talker and a jokester; was in some respects a linguist, at least he enriched the Guards language with many new words and expressions that were in circulation and in general use for a long time, for example: skip for a tie, a little under the chef (chauffé), framboise (framboise - “raspberry”), etc. All this, according to his word interpretation, meant that the person drank too much, went on a spree.”².

In “The Old Notebook,” Vyazemsky describes the events of the early 19th century, which means the expression is about 200 years old. Academician Vinogradov collected the history of words in the middle of the 20th century, and, apparently, at that moment the phrase began to be used more often in the working environment, so the place of the tie in this phrase was gradually taken by the collar. One example of use can be found in verses by V. Vysotsky: “The honest Greek swam along the river of life // And he drowned, or maybe cancer overtook him. // Under the Greek they pawned a man - // And he pawned the Greek by the collar.”

¹. Vinogradov V.V. History of words: about 1500 words and expressions and more than 5000 words associated with them / Rep. ed. N. Yu. Shvedova. M.: Tolk, 1994.
². Vyazemsky P. A. Old notebook. Compilation, article and commentary by L. Ya. Ginzburg. L.: Publishing house of writers in Leningrad, 1927.

Image: open sources on the Internet