The article examines the history of the functioning of the
stable expression “ruku prilozhit'” (“have a fingerin the
pie”)in theRussian official language and beyond.Speech
and socio-cultural sources ofthis combination are determined, its one-word derivatives are analyzed — “rukoprikladstvo”, “rukoprilozheniye”, “rukoprikladyvaniye”
(“handwriting”).It is pointed out that the active spread
of kantselyarizm “to make a hand” coincides with the
active development in the 15–16th centuries of Russian
“everyday law”, a close connection between the official
speech ofthe pre-Petrine time and the spoken language.
There is a gradual departure of this kantselyarizm from
the official sphere, the development of figurative meanings in the texts of fiction,the source of which can be the
lexico-semantic variants of the polysemanticwords that
make up this expression (“attach”; “hand”). The cases
of playful use of the combination “ruku prilozhit'” are
considered,motivated by generating phrases that are not
native forthis expression,as a result ofwhich new meanings are formed (‘shake hands’,‘kiss hands’).The evolution ofthe functioning ofthe business combination“ruku
prilozhit’” is closely connected with the development of
the official sphere as a whole, with the development of
the document as a special text reflecting the “ideology”
of public administration. On the example of the history
of one bureaucracy,the influence ofthewritten language
of power on the logic and principles of the development
of the Russian official language is demonstrated,which
intensifies with each subsequent century.