Put on a sheepskin coat or put on. Dress or put on clothes, things - how to speak and write correctly: the rule of the Russian language, examples

Very often these words are used in speech. There is not much difference between them, and, using them, many simply do not know how and when to use this or that verb. These words can be used with the same nouns in sentences. For example: put on a ring and put on a ring. But it turns out that this is not the case. These words are, they are very similar in sound and spelling, but have different meanings. It is with the wrong use of paronyms that mistakes in speech often occur. In order to avoid unpleasant situations, you need to remember the rules for using the above verbs in certain cases.

Put on or dress properly

Both of these words are verbs, they are consonant, but they are used in different situations and answer different questions. When using these words, it is important to understand which noun will refer to given verb, and ask a question from him. If, when posing a question, the question “who?” Arises, then it is written “to dress”. The word applies to all animate nouns (answering the question "who?"). For example, to dress "who?":

There is a slight exception if the subject denotes the likeness of a person, then the verb “dress” is also applied to it. In this case, these words will be asked the question "what?", And not "who?" Like what?":

  • doll;
  • dummy.

The word “clothe” means a manipulation that is performed by one object for another. The word "put on" is used if they are going to pull on something, pull on (put on a hat, socks), that is, the movement is performed mainly in relation to oneself (pull on clothes).

What techniques can be used to make it easier to remember

You need to pick up several ways that will help you quickly, without hesitation, apply this or that verb in Russian. There are several such techniques. The easiest way that will not allow you to make a mistake in choosing a verb is pick up antonyms to them. This option is considered infallible for correct word choice. For instance:

  1. To put on is the opposite of undress.
  2. To dress a son is to undress a son.
  3. Dress up a doll - undress a doll.
  4. To put on the verb - remove the antonym.
  5. Put on a hat - take off your hat.

Confusion becomes much more difficult. It will already be ugly to say "take off your hat", it sounds stupid and ugly. The next way is using reminder phrases... The most common phrase used in school years to this rule. It is worth remembering it once and it will always be easy to say correctly: “put on Nadezhda, put on clothes”. There is another way to remember. To do this, you need to remember that "dress" refers to reflexive verbs, that is, these are those that can be used with the suffix "-sya" at the end. For example:

  • dress warmly;
  • get dressed quickly;
  • dress nicely.

If the specified verbs in the context are used with the preposition "on", then it will unmistakably say "put on". For example:

  • put boots on your feet, a hat on your head;
  • put the bracelet on your hand.

And another little trick, it will push you to choose how to correctly speak the described verb, with the prefix on or not. You just need to remember that put on something on someone (or whatever if exceptions apply) and dress themselves. For example:

  1. Masha got dressed and went for a walk with the dog.
  2. Nastya put on her favorite pants.
  3. Vasya dressed beautifully.
  4. Grandmother put on a fancy hat.
  5. The child got dressed in the kindergarten.

When to use a particular verb

The same rules and recommendations apply here as in the case of the words “dress” or “put on”, that is, if the verb is used with animate objects (or with exceptions), then it is written “to dress”, and if we are talking about inanimate subjects, then the verb with "on" is written. For example:

  • dress your son for school;
  • dress your granddaughter for a holiday;
  • put on a thimble on your finger, your favorite red dress, a coat on your shoulders;
  • dress the bride for the wedding.

Using the word "put on" in relation to yourself, you need to clarify what exactly (dress, fur coat, skirt, trousers). In spoken language, the difference in the use of these words is not so noticeable, and very often making such mistakes, the interlocutor may not notice it.

A more attentive attitude to your speech will help you speak and write beautifully and competently. Knowing what is the difference between these verbs, in what context this or that word is applicable, will eliminate mistakes in speech. The correct and appropriate use of these verbs in Russian makes speech richer and more attractive to others.

Despite all the rules that exist on this issue, there are still disputes about the correct use of the analyzed verbs. Some believe that the word without the prefix "on" is applicable to most words, even to those that are excluded by the rules of the Russian language.

The answer is Yesenia Pavlotski, linguist-morphologist, expert at the Institute of Philology, Mass Media and Psychology, Novosibirsk State Pedagogical University.

Native speakers have made such a problem out of the misuse of these words that it is hard to believe that someone is not aware of the differences. dress and put on... And yet, the norm of the use of these words remains a relevant and frequent query in search engines.

Dress up and put oncertainly not variants of the norm, but two different words with different lexical meanings. At least for now.

Dress upwho whatmeans to clothe someone in some kind of clothing. Dress the child.

Put onwhatmeans to pull on, pull on (clothes, shoes, cover), covering, wrapping something into something. Put on a suit, headphones.

How else to spot the differences: word dress combined with animate nouns, and put on with the inanimate. We just need to remember that in addition to the actual consciousness, we also have an ancient consciousness, which, like instincts, is dormant, but always somewhere nearby. Therefore, our language also considers anthropomorphic, human-like objects to be animate. So we also dress the doll and the mannequin, although in general for the same reason we can dress objects less similar to a person, which the language "confuses" with the living: a dead man, an oyster, a microbe.

More words dress and put on enter into different systemic relationships: antonyms put on - take offopposed to antonyms dress - undress .

But if everything is so harmonious and obvious, why do native speakers constantly confuse these words in the stream of speech, even if they know everything about the differences between these paronyms?

The fact is that the language simultaneously strives both to accumulate resources and to cleanse the system from unnecessary things. Language as a living system is characterized by a "shuttle movement" along the basis - up and down. He takes the necessary resources, sorts them and gets rid of what has not stuck, was not useful or worn out. So it is constantly updated, while at the same time maintaining harmony and consistency.

It so happens that the system is fragmented and complicated in certain areas for the needs of the language, and it happens that such fragmentation becomes obsolete. In vocabulary, the result of this process can be generalization: one word covers all other words with different meanings or shades of meaning. For example, today the system perceives words dress and put on as fragmentation that has lost its meaning. Now is the word dress swallows words put on and put on shoes... When this absorption is complete, the word dresshow the stronger will have three meanings that once belonged different words... The phenomena of reality will not go anywhere, but the language will save resources, and that's okay.

Now we see how this process manifests itself: failures occur in the speech of native speakers. People who know the difference between dress and put on, they say something like this: "Now I will put on ... oh, I will put on a jacket"... This does not mean that they are not literate enough - just one word absorbs another word and its meaning.

So today paronyms dress and put on are strictly different in meaning, but very soon the overlapping of meanings of these words may become the norm.

Notorious verbs put on and dress so treacherously consonant that in everyday communication they are often not distinguished at all, considering them synonyms. Although colloquial speech does not imply a high syllable, nevertheless, it will only benefit from observing the rules of the Russian language, lexical norms in particular.

How to dress or put on correctly - do not look at the root

... but into the console. It is the difference between the prefixes that sends the one-root dress and put on to different concepts:

  • Prefix about- in a word dress indicates the action taking place around. According to the same principle, words are formed to clothe, to envelop. To dress - to wrap, clothe, wrap clothing around yourself.
  • Prefix on the- in a word put on speaks of action directed at the surface. To put on means only to cover, to pull on something.

We are looking for whom to wear and what to wear

Permanently rid yourself of the mistaken use of the verb dress and put on very easy. To do this, it is enough to remember the following rules:

  • Dress up always used with animate nouns, put on only with the inanimate. Simply put, they dress someone, put on something. For comparison, dress your son in a suit, but put your son in a suit.
  • If somebody dressed - it can be undress, if something put on, it is possible only take off... For example, a lid on a jar can only be removed, but not undressed. But a child who has fallen asleep in clothes must be undressed.
  • In speech the verb put on always directly associated with a thing, clothing without the obligatory indication of who wears. Dress upon the contrary, it always directly indicates who is being dressed or who is being dressed.

For reference. In situations where it is necessary to put on an inanimate object, but related to the image of a person, the verb to put on is also used. Dress the baby doll in a pink suit, a mannequin in a fashionable coat, a garden scarecrow in old pants.


Put on and dress up the doll

Clearly the difference between the meanings of verbs dress and put on shows play with bibabo doll... The entertainment will be useful not only for children, but also for adults who want to learn to distinguish between paronyms. All actions with a toy must be spoken out loud:

  • We take the glove doll and pull it over our hand. We say: “ The doll is on“.
  • We put on the doll a hat, scarf or dress. We say: “ Doll dressed“.
  • We pull the bibabo off the hand with the words: “ The doll was removed“.
  • We take off the dress, scarf, hat from the toy. We comment: “ The doll was stripped“.

For those who find the game too simple, the task can be complicated by calling the doll Odette.


How to dress or put on correctly - memos

Associations help to remember any information faster and easier. To mentally fix the correct values put on and dress there are several popular mnemonic phrases - memos:

  • "The grandfather is dressed, the sheepskin coat is on."
  • “Dressing Hope, putting on clothes”.


Do not be upset if the first time of working with your own speech and memory brings nothing but internal tension from constant self-examination. Lightness and naturalness will come with daily practice and the assimilation of the correct meanings of paronyms.

Summer is outside - the time of long-awaited rest and vacations, and in honor of such a case, the Literary Workshop somewhat slows down the pace of publishing new articles. Do not blame me - soon everything will return to normal, just each of us needs at least sometimes a little rest ...

Today, under the heading "A minute of literacy", we will discuss a very burning issue of the correct use of verbs dress and put on... And if most of us, I'm sure, learned the main principle of their use at school, then the author, who ignored this issue, runs the risk of being laughed at by a more prepared public at any moment. Agree that there is an extremely high chance that a reader (and even more so an editor in a publishing house or a respected critic), having noticed such an error in the text, will simply close this creation so that he will never return to it. Therefore, in order not to get into a mess, today we will repeat the rules for using verbs put on and dress.

The essence of the problem

It is quite obvious that not correct use verb forms are equally characteristic of both oral and written speech. The main reason for such speech errors is the nondiscrimination of the same root words. Often confused, such as verbs get used to and get used to, loosen up and let loose, adverbs objectively and objectively... In the use of single-root words, the most "unlucky" is our heroes: the verbs dress (dress) - put on (put on)... These verbs belong to the so-called paronyms - words that are similar in sound, but different in meaning. It is the correct use of verbs dress and put on in this or that situation is the stumbling block that we must learn to overcome.

Terms of use

To understand the question of the correct use of our verbs, the first thing you need to remember is that the verbs dress and put on - ambiguous. In order not to introduce unnecessary confusion, we will consider the most common first values:

Dress up - who, what. 1. To put on someone in any clothes. For example: Dress up a son, dress a patient, dress a doll.

Put on - what. 1. Pull on, push (clothes, shoes, cover, etc.), covering, wrapping something. For example: Put on a coat, put on a hat, put on a mask, put on boots.

In general, it is in the meanings of these verbs that the main rule of their use lies.

As we can see, the verb dress perfectly combines with animate nouns and with some inanimate, denoting the likeness of a person ( doll, mannequin, skeleton). The verb is put on used exclusively with inanimate nouns.

It is important to note that the verb dress can be combined with inanimate nouns denoting body parts. This happens through the mediation of an animated noun and necessarily with a prepositional-case combination of an inanimate noun ( Put your hand in a glove).

Verb put on has syntactic links in the same way as with animate nouns ( put a coat on a child), and with inanimate ( put on a glove on your hand, put on a sweater under your jacket).

The difference in the semantics of our verbs is also emphasized by the fact that they form different antonymic pairs: put on - take off, put on - undress.

In general, the main thing that we must remember is that the verb dress used in relation to any person or part of the body (in the meaning clothe). Put on the same is to pull, to pull on a piece of clothing.

That's all for today. I hope you have successfully refreshed the school curriculum and reliably insured yourself against children's mistakes in the texts. Subscribe to blog updates. See you soon!

The difference between putting on and getting dressed is confusing to many. Their incorrect use is designated as a speech error. These words are paronyms, they are similar in sound and spelling, but their meanings are different. Like any other paronyms, this pair of words is often misused.

You can understand the differences between them, as well as learn the rule of how to use them correctly, using simple methods of memorizing them.

This pair of words was highlighted back in 1843 in the "Reference Place of the Russian Word."

Already there, attention was focused on the complexity of using these words, it was indicated how each word is spelled, it was described what the difference is between them, when to write and speak to put on, and when to put on.

Words are similar in morphemic composition and sound, these are verbs. But at the same time they differ in the following characteristics:

  • they have different prefixes (o- and na-);
  • different lexical meaning.

Fixed in explanatory dictionaries. To dress means to dress someone in some kind of clothing, to cover someone, to help. To put on is an action directed at oneself, at the one who speaks.

But even understanding the lexical differences between these words does not always help to choose the right option.

Important! Rules, tables, examples and "memos" come to the rescue - ways of memorizing the rules of using words.

How to choose the right word

To select a word, you can use the table:

For a better understanding, you can use examples. For the word put on:

  • The girl put on a beautiful snow-white dress.
  • I put on my hat because it's cold outside.
  • In the evening a cool wind blew, do not forget to wear a warm coat.
  • I put on those new jewelry that you gave me.
  • Put on the ring, I like it so much!
  • When putting on trousers, do not forget to take out your belt.
  • We put on the same jumpsuits by accident.

For the word dress:

  • I can't get myself together so quickly, I still need to dress three children!
  • Dressing children for a walk is the responsibility of educators.
  • Dress warmly, it's freezing outside!
  • Don't put that skirt on her, she doesn't fit under the tights!
  • It seems strange to me to dress a dog in so many clothes.
  • Put her glasses on, she can't see well!

There is a vivid example of a "memorization" with a glove. A worn glove is one that has something on it: a hat or a scarf. And the glove worn is the glove on the hand.

If these methods are not enough, you can use other options.

How to remember the difference forever

Remembering the difference between words and not making mistakes when using them helps not only the rules, but also "memorization": associative short rhymes, rhymed lines, short sentences, comic sketches. For example:

  • Mom was dressing her little son, he put on the wrong pants again.
  • I will put on a red coat, and I will dress you in a blue coat.
  • I dressed in the new fashion, put on a dress from the dresser.
  • I put on a jacket for Maruska, put on my boots.
  • Dress the doll in boots, put on those pants for yourself!

Advice! “Putting on something, putting it on!”, “Putting on yourself, dressing someone” - sometimes it is enough to remember these simple phrases for the correct use of words in the future.
You can come up with your own phrase. It should be simple and rhythmic, easy to remember.

Antonymic pairs help to choose between words:

  • put on / take off;
  • dress / undress.

If you doubt the use of these words, you can replace them. For example, what is the correct usage: "wear gloves" or "wear gloves"? If you replace in the second case the word with an antonym, you get an incorrect phrase: "Strip gloves."

Is there a difference?

Disputes continue between researchers of the Russian language over the normality of the use of these words.

Some argue that there is not much difference, and the modern language is mutating.

This leads to the fact that there is no longer a need to monitor the use of words so strictly.

For example, even in the explanatory dictionary of Ushakov, in the meaning of the word “dress”, it can be used instead of “put on”.

And in 1973 in the reference book "Difficulties of Word Use and Variants of the Norms of the Russian Literary Language" it was allowed to use both words freely without distinction, and this was not considered a mistake.

So all the same you have to think about how to say: wear or wear? Or let everyone say how they feel comfortable?

Modern researchers are divided: some defend the variability of the Russian language and support the preservation of shades of meaning behind every word.

Another part supports the changes and the tendency of the language to simplify. This question is often raised, but there is still no consensus on this matter.

Useful video

Let's sum up

When using one of the two words, you should take into account the target audience of the text: if it is an academic text, then it is advisable to write in accordance with the accepted norms of the Russian language.

In live speech, some mistakes can be made, but in any case, you always need to be able to argue your position. To do this, you need to arm yourself with rules, costs from dictionaries and vivid examples and views on this problem of different linguists.