Thread: "Tie your shoe and zip your pants!" (and related expressions)

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

зашнуровать and расшнуровать
...
If I'm not mistaken, when tying the shoes, one says either завязать шнурки or зашнуровать туфли/ботинки (but not зашнуровать шнурки) -- is that right?

расшнуровать / зашнуровать - are used when a shoelace is taken totally out (or inserted in the lace holes when it was totally out) of the shoe.

Originally Posted by CoffeeCup

расшнуровать / зашнуровать - are used when a shoelace is taken totally out (or inserted in the lace holes when it was totally out) of the shoe.

indeed it's the literary norm

colloquially however people often use it synonymically to завязать шнурки на