The Year in Words

It’s that wonderful time of the year… when the city is buried under a couple of meters of snow, your boots are turning white from de-icer, and the pre-holiday traffic-jam-o-meter is stuck between “barely moving” and “total transportation collapse.” It’s a perfect time to stay inside, make a pot of tea and vote for слова 2016 года (2016 words of the year).

When you look back over the year, you see how recent events have eclipsed some of the earlier headline-grabbers. Remember грекзит (Grexit), the precursor to брекзит (Brexit)? Russian wordsmiths spent the better part of the post-Brexit period dithering over the spelling: брексит, брекзит, брегзит, брегсит, or брэкзит. So far it looks like брекзит is the winner and has firmly entered the Russian language.

Alas, war words loomed large this year. While гибридная война (hybrid war) continued to be a popular phrase and subject, more attention was given to кибервойна (cyberwar), кибератака (cyberattack) and кибервойска (cyber soldiers). In Russia the ministries and media are, of course, concerned about these internet warriors in the US: ФСБ заявила о подготовке кибератак на финансовую систему России. (The Federal Security Service announced that plans were being made for cyberattacks on the Russian finance system.)

Those кибервойска are very different than диванные войска (armchair warriors), aka лавочная армия (bench army), both led by кухонные генералы (kitchen generals). These are defined as активные пользователи Интернета, выдающие советы властям и политическим деятелям, но реально ничего не делающие (active internet users who give advice to the authorities and politicians but who, in reality, do nothing).

Out in the real world the phrase военные преступления (war crimes) has also been nominated for word of the year, along with допинг and допинговый скандал (doping and doping scandal).

Also in the real world — more or less — were the US elections, which were covered so lavishly in the media that Russian linguists joke that the word выборы (elections) now means американские президентские выборы (American presidential elections). Folks had fun, in a dark sort of way. The divisive process produced Разъединённые Штаты Америки (the Disunited States of America) and a president they call Майн Трампф (Mein Trumpf). Trump’s policies are collectively called трампизм (Trumpism), although nutty Trump fanatics are called трампанутые, an adjective formed with the derogatory suffix –нутый – like чокнутый (nutty) and православнутый (nutty pseudo-Orthodox Christians). The funniest coined word is Трампункт, a play on травмпункт, a first aid station, where you go with травма (trauma, injury). But the meaning of the word might not please everyone: Травмированная Россия пройдёт лечение в Трампункте. (A traumatized Russia will go get healed at the Trump aid station.)

The year was also rich in мемы года (memes of the year) — those off-the-cuff remarks that officials must have regretted a nanosecond after speaking but that will live on in t-shirts, mugs, and snarky Facebook photo collages forever. The hands-down winner was from Dmitry Medvedev, who got a bit flustered and told a group of angry old folks asking for pension hikes, “Денег нет, но вы держитесь!” (There’s no money, but you hang in there!).

But my personal favorite word of the year was увы (alas). The word was featured in депрессивная демонстрация (a depressing demonstration) in which grim people held up signs like Увы (Alas) instead of shouting the expected Ура! (Hurrah!). This gave us увы-страна (country, alas), увы-патриотизм (patriotism, alas), and увы-парад (a demonstration, alas). They are all a kind of cosmic sigh over the state of the country.

Well, that was the year that was. Увы.