The words grenadier and Musketeer are found mainly in literary works related to the distant past. At the same time, it is not always clear how to read long-written, for example, well-known lines from the immortal "Woe from Wit" by A. S. Griboyedov:

"[Khlestova:] You've been here before... in the regiment... in that... in the Grenadier corps?

[Skalozub: In His Highness's, you mean, Novozemlyansk Musketry."

As we can see, the adjectives Grenadier and Musketeer rhyme, but if you follow the recommendations of modern orthoepic reference books, you should pronounce Grenadier, but: musketeer (Orthoepic Dictionary of the Russian language. Pronunciation, stress, grammatical forms. Moscow, 1983; for more information, see: Vorontsova V. L. Pronunciation of the word Musketeer / / Russian speech. 1970. N 1). The explanation lies in the history of the words themselves.

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The noun musketeer historically correlates with the name of the weapon musket: "a warrior armed with a musket" (Dictionary of the Russian language of the XI-XVII centuries, Moscow, 1982. Issue 9). Dictionaries of the XVIII-XIX centuries note other borrowings: musketeer, musketeer, musketeer, musketeer, reflecting the forms presented in different European languages: French mousquetaire( old, mousquetier), German Musketierer (old. Musqutierer), etc. (Fasmer M. Etymological Dictionary of the Russian language, Moscow, 1987, vol. III).

A curious picture is presented by the distribution of borrowed variants in the Russian language of the XVIII century, while dictionaries focus on the competition of musketeer-mushkater forms, translations give preference to the musketeer form due to the influence of French vocalism: "... this was fun, used by the young men of the family and royal Musketeers "(Mercier A. S. Picture of Paris. Trans. St. Petersburg, 1786); "the servants of the hotel showed much more respect for him than for the two Musceters who were sitting there in a corner" (Letters of Persia. Works of G. Montesky, translated by E. Roznotovsky, St. Petersburg, 1792). However, by the beginning of the XIX century, both in translations and in lexicographic practice, the Musketeer variant prevailed (Zinova N. V. Gallicisms in Russian. Baku, 1997). By the beginning of the XX century, due to the growing activity of the borrowed suffix-er (French: - eur), the form Musketeer (Dal V. I. Tolkovyi slovar zhivogo velikorusskogo yazyka [Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language], St. Petersburg, 1905, vol. II; Stoyan P. E. Maly tolkovyi slovar russkogo yazyka [Small Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language], Moscow, 1916), which turned out to be promising and established in the literary language.

Despite the fact that the reality itself, denoted by the word Musketeer, has passed into the past, historical novels and films have not allowed it to fall out of use. In addition, the heroes of these films and books usually fight with swords, and therefore a journalistic stamp was developed: swordsmen in the media began to be called Musketeers.

A different fate awaited the borrowing of the Grenadier. The grenadiers were armed with a granada, or, as they also said, a grenade-a hand-held explosive projectile for throwing. The burning grenade was the emblem of Russian Grenadier regiments (Chernykh P. Ya. Istoriko-etymologicheskiy slovar sovremennogo russkogo yazyka [Historical and Etymological Dictionary of the modern Russian language], Moscow, 2001, Vol. I). At the beginning of the XVIII century, the noun granatnik was formed from the name of the weapon - a soldier throwing grenades at the enemy. But, like the word musketeer, it was replaced by forms of foreign origin: granader, granoder, granadir, granodir, associated with several sources: Italian granatiere, Old Czech granadyr, Old Polish granodier, German Grenadier "with an amendment (gr > gra) on Russian soil" (Chernykh. Edict. op.).

These variants competed until the end of the XVIII century and gave way to the Grenadier form (contamination French. grenadier and staropolsk.

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granodier) only at the beginning of the XIX century, which, obviously, was connected with the new meaning that the word in question received: "soldier of selected regiments" (Black. Edict. op.).

The 20th century has made its own adjustments: under the influence of the growing productivity of the suffix-er, the form grenadier (Stoyan. Edict. op.). Perhaps it would have prevailed in the language, as it happened with the word Musketeer, but the name of the military personnel of selected regiments became historicism, leaving the living use, and the new form did not have time to gain a foothold. However, since the letter e is optional in Russian graphics, an unfamiliar word is often pronounced by the modern reader based on the active model: grenadier. It is no accident that B. Okudzhava in the poem "Farewell to the Christmas Tree" was forced to make changes to the stanza:

And refined as nightingales,

proud as grenadiers,

what are your reliable hands

hiding your boyfriends?

In the final version of the suitors were replaced by gentlemen.

Returning to the work of A. S. Griboyedov, we note that it requires reading based on the old pronunciation: grenadier, Musketeer, modern to the realities that these words meant.

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