Where Did Mushrooms Come From in Figure Skating: On Motivational Interpretation of the Russian Jargon Griby ‘Undeservedly High Scores’

The article is devoted to the image of mushrooms in the figure skating jargon. This image is developed in the space of a word family derived from the lexeme grib: for example, griby ‘undeservedly high scores’, gribovat’, kidat’ (nasypat’, navalit’) griby ‘to give undeservedly high scores to skaters’, gribnik ‘a skater who received undeservedly high scores’ and other lexemes and phraseological units related to receiving unfairly inflated scores by skaters. Refuting the popular explanations of these words and expressions that exist on the Internet, which from the point of view of the authors are unreliable, the authors offer their own motivational interpretation. The authors claim that the studied linguistic facts arose outside the figure skating jargon (in other words, with the participation of other jargons) and have a euphemistic nature. The authors present thematic areas that use the image of mushrooms, which serve as the sources of the new use under consideration – this is mainly Russian slang and dialect vocabulary with the meaning of material enrichment, poaching, social failure, love infidelity and physiological functions. Within these semantic areas, the word grib has connotations of hidden, secret action, substitution, rapid and unexpected appearance, multiplicity, and there is also a paradoxical combination of symbols of high and, conversely, low value, as well as difficult and, on the contrary, easy prey. These connotations play a key role for using the image of a mushroom in the figure skating jargon.