In the remark under the equally biting, as well as amazing title " Experimental language "(Izvestia. 2001. Dec 17) claims that the "philological authorities" are still making some innovations in order to "deflect accusations of complete inactivity": "a few years ago, the word voluminous was banished from normative usage... Another victim of philological initiative was the word comfortable. God forbid we should use it instead of the comfortable one that is now due..."

Let us turn to normative dictionaries, i.e. dictionaries that reflect objectively the norm of word usage existing in the literary language (including the very fact of the word's presence in the literary language) with varying degrees of reliability (adequacy). I mentioned the degree of adequacy because sometimes an objectively existing language norm can be presented differently in different dictionaries. For example, the stress norm (accent norm) for the words yogurt and ketchup in the Orthoepic Dictionary of the Russian language is presented in contrast to other dictionaries with an accent on the last syllable.

More than sixty years ago, in the Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language under the editorship of D. N. Ushakov, comfortable and comfortable were recognized as synonyms. At the same time, the first word was characterized as colloquial, and the second - as obsolete. Half a century has passed, and the four-volume Dictionary of the Russian language recognizes them as paronyms (i.e. words of the same part of speech and the same root, but with different meanings). However, these are incomplete paronyms: they have the same meaning - "comfortable, cozy, with comfort". For comfortable, the dictionary also notes another meaning: "one that has a positive effect on well-being, gives a pleasant feeling, etc.". We will say: comfortable circumstances, not comfortable (for more information about these words and their meanings, see: Russian Speech. 1999. N 4. P. 60).

Another 16 years have passed, and the Large Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language (St. Petersburg, 1998) also considers these words to be incomplete paronyms. Both

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these words are in the Orthoepical Dictionary. And in the Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language by S. I. Ozhegov and N. Yu. Shvedova (Moscow, 1997) there is nothing comfortable, only comfortable. However, the presence of a word in different dictionaries at different times is a sure indication of its presence in the language. On the other hand, the absence of a word in one of the dictionaries cannot serve as proof of its disappearance.

Now voluminous and bulky. In the Dictionary edited by D. N. Ushakov, these words have different meanings. Bulky - " large in volume. A voluminous book." Volumetric refers to a special vocabulary and is interpreted as: "An adjective for volume in 1 sign." Volume in this sense: "the value in the length and height of a body with closed surfaces, measured in cubic units." Therefore, in this dictionary, these words are recognized as full paronyms. Over time, voluminous has the same meaning as the word bulky. Both of them become incomplete paronyms or, if you prefer, incomplete synonyms.

This change is recorded in the aforementioned four-volume Academic Dictionary of the Russian Language, the Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language by S. I. Ozhegov and N. Yu. Shvedova, and the Large Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language. Voluminous and voluminous are present in the Spelling Dictionary. Let us add that all four words are found in the Academic Spelling Dictionary of the Russian Language (Moscow, 1991) and in the Spelling Dictionary of the Russian Language (Moscow, 2000).

So, normative dictionaries do not confirm the need for an obituary dedicated to the comfortable along with the voluminous.

Compilers of dictionaries are guided not by the instructions of the "philological authorities", but by the indications of file cabinets. In the St. Petersburg academic card catalog, the number of cards with examples of word usage has long exceeded seven million. In the file cabinets, each word is represented by hundreds of cases of its use by different authors over the centuries. And no "philological authorities" will dare, and will not be able to prohibit what dictionaries affirm in solidarity. In addition, among philologists, the aphorism of I. P. Pavlov is still alive: "Facts are the air of a scientist."

R. S. Ten days after the remark was published, we read in Izvestia: "Lukashenka feels quite comfortable in the Kremlin." It is unlikely that the language intuition (flair of the language) will allow you to replace comfortable with comfortable here!

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