On a lovely morning not long ago, I skipped across my courtyard to my car and discovered a note on the windshield. The note began ???€????! (Freak!) and continued — with to my mind an excessive use of exclamation points and non-normative lexicon — to impart the writer's overall poor impression of my mental abilities and moral standards. My crime? I parked my car wrong. Since I parked it like everyone else, not blocking any cars or impeding traffic, I chalked this up to ???µ???µ?????µ?µ ???±?????‚?€?µ?????µ (spring freak out), tossed the note and went on my merry way.
But later someone asked me: Why ???€????? Why not another derogatory term? And I realized that what the world really needs is a guide to common Russian insults, nasty names and slangy curses.
Well, that and a new world economic order.
But since I can't do much about the latter, at least I can come up with a good list of names to call those @(*#&$(@#* who are flushing the world's economy down the toilet.
???€???? is a fine word to start with. An offshoot of the verb ?€???????‚?? (to give birth), its primary meaning is a person with some physical or mental deformity or impairment. You can hear this meaning in the expression ?? ???µ?????µ ???µ ?±?µ?· ???€?????° (there's a black sheep in every family). In literary language you may come across ?????€?°?»?????‹?? ???€???? — a moral moron, a person whose moral sense is deformed or nonexistent.
In colloquial Russian, ???€???? can mean a very ugly person — unattractive to the point of deformity: ?? ???€?????°?? ???‚?????????‚???? ???????µ?€???????µ?»?? — ?»??????, ???° ?????‚???€?‹?… ?±?µ?· ???»?‘?· ???????µ?€???µ?????? ???µ?????·?????¶???? ???????‚?€?µ?‚??. (Super models are a freak show — people you can't even look at without weeping.) Or it can mean someone who is a complete imbecile, a freak of nature. That's apparently what I was in my courtyard — a jerk too dumb to park her car right.
Moving right along, we come to ???±?»????????, a word connected with a different accident of birth. The first meaning, now archaic, is a mutt — a mixed-breed animal. ?? ???µ???? ?±?‹?»?° ?????±?°???°, ???°?¶?µ?‚???? ???±?»???????? ???· ?????€?????‹ ?±???»????????????. (He had a dog — I think it was a bulldog mix.) That led to a second, less proper meaning — an illegitimate child. In time that morphed to mean a real bastard — a base, cruel person with animal instincts.
This is the word to reach for when you see kids tormenting an animal or a gazillionaire CEO cutting worker benefits with one hand as he pockets an obscenely large bonus with the other. ?’ ?‡?‘?? ?€?°?·?????†?° ???µ?¶???? ?°?????????°?‚???? ?? ???????????µ??? ???µ?€?????µ — ???‚?? ?±?µ?·?????·???»?‹??, ???€?????»?????‹??, ???????????‹?? ???±?»????????. ?? ???‚???€???µ — ?????µ???? ?»?????? ???????°?????µ?µ ?¶???????‚?????µ. (What's the difference between a lawyer and a pig? The former is a brainless, disgusting, obnoxious bastard. The latter is just a barnyard animal.)
If someone is truly a disgusting monster, you can call him a ???‹?€???????? — but, for your own safety, say it behind his back and very quietly. ?’?‹?€???????? is a degenerate — the kind of creature a mother animal abandons because she knows he'll grow into something abnormal and monstrous. ?????? ???µ?»?? ???µ?±?? ???°?? ?????»???? ?? ?????‡?°?€???µ, ???‚?? ???‹?€????????, ???‚?±?€?????‹ ???±?‰?µ???‚???°. (They behaved like wolves in a sheep pen, those monsters — the dregs of society.)
Examples? Alas, just read the daily headlines anywhere in the world.
Michele A. Berdy, a Moscow-based translator and interpreter, is author of “The Russian Word’s Worth” (Glas), a collection of her columns.