What does the expression “and laughter and sin” mean?
When something unpleasant happens that is so absurd that you want to laugh, people often say: «И смех и грех» (“I smekh i grekh” or “And laughter and sin.”)
It is unclear where this expression came from, but it already appears in 19th century dictionaries. Some even believe that it came from the Bible. For example, it says: “The conversation of fools is disgusting and their laughter is in the amusement of sin.”
But, in the Russian language, the word ‘грех’ (‘sin’) has not only a religious meaning (the violation of the commandments), but also an everyday one. This is how people called an unpleasantness, misdeed or mistake and they could, for example, exclaim: «Какой грех со мной приключился!» (“What a sin has befallen me!”) That is, a situation when it is funny and annoying at the same time.
Vladimir Dahl’s dictionary gives several examples at once: “Where there is sin, there is laughter” and “a lot of laughter, but not a little sin” to name two.
English equivalents would be: “It’s funny and tragic at the same time” and “don’t know whether to laugh or cry.”
