NOT REALLY A 'DICK'

 Explaining ‘khuilo’

As you may know, Putin is khuilo. A piece of what is called "Russian mat" or just "mat" (common definition for invective vocabulary in Russian) had leaked into Western media at some moment around February, 2014.

Russian language is widely used almost all over the territory of Ukraine. You can hear it everywhere. Even in those regions where Ukrainian prevails, Russian is still understood well. The reason for that is far from what khuilo provides as his excuse to invade Ukraine. It’s just a legacy of long-term imprisonment of Ukrainian nation within the Russian, and then, Soviet empire.

You might also know, the word had generated a discussion in the media. While Russian troops were advancing to seize the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, western journalists and editors were crossing swords in the quest for the fittest translation. Finally, several weightiest publishers have stated "dick" and "dickhead" to be English counterparts of "khuilo".

However, none of those terms deliver the real meaning, thus preventing foreign language speakers from realizing the real value and glory of the Russian president’s nickname.

So let us make it clear to the world.

To catch the concept, one needs to get a bit closer to Russian grammar.

Russian language uses inflections, whereas English commonly prefers prepositions. That gives the clue to understanding. If––for some reason in the world––you want to speak Russian, you will have to inflect almost every word to express what you think. That provides Russian language with abundance of different suffices and flections. Sense-bearing ones. English has lots of such cases (compare ‘mom’ and ‘mommy’) but the large deposits of Russian word-building morphemes can be compared to natural gas deposits in Siberia.

Another remark must be made for grammatical gender usage. The three genders (masculine, feminine and neutral) are actively used in Russian. Their usage rules differ from English ones. Gender really matters in Russian for the reason a speaker has to inflect nouns, adjectives and verbs for person, number, gender and tense constantly. 

Albeit roughly described, those two principles can deliver general sense of Russian word formation where colloquial speech in most cases goes absolute freestyle.

Now, you are ready to immerse into shades of meaning of ‘khuilo’ word.

The base for ‘khuilo’ is ‘khui’ (хуй) –– Russian for ‘dick’, probably the most informal but at the same time most frequently used word for it. A suffix ‘-lo’ is added to adjust the meaning. Actually, the word ‘khui’ is of masculine gender (which is consistent). Using obscene Russian you really can call any male ‘khui’(be careful with that—it is a very offensive way to address a person). But the basic word brings no additional offensive sense. Moreover, Russian vulgar culture is absolutely sexually oriented. Thus, such an address would rather be contemptuous, hitting an addressee’s dignity just once. A dick, anyway, is the primary sexual character of a male. Thus, calling someone «a dick» you humiliate him but at the same time give him credit for his masculinity. As you may suggest, a dick usually has got balls, after all.

And here it goes, the ‘-lo’ suffix! Usually, Russian words ending with ‘-o’ and ‘-e’ are of neutral gender. The most popular relevant discussion in Russian-speaking community nowadays is held over what gender the word ‘coffee’ should be. While the traditionalists treat it masculine, the liberals claim it must be neutral. So, the suffix ‘-lo’ transforms basic notion «khui» into neutral gender concept somewhat close to ‘a dick of unspecified gender, having no balls’, thus enhancing the negative connotations of the notion and diminishing its positive features. A dick without balls or ‘just a dick’ is not a masculine insignia, it becomes a sexless object. So, the closest notion in English would probably be ‘dildo’.

That’s it, folks!

And don’t forget! Putin is khuilo!