"Komsomolskaya Pravda": "We’ll bring the crooks to heel so they don’t rattle us"
This year's strongest language used publicly
The Komsomolskaya Pravda daily has begun to summarise the developments of 2008, which has proved the most turbulent year of the third millennium.
Many events and changes occurred in Russia and around the world this year. Sometimes politicians used unusual language to describe them - often colloquial, sometimes harsh but always expressive. Some of these expressions became instant hits with the public; they lingered, then stuck and finally made their way into daily use.
Here is KP's glossary of the spiciest cult words and coolest phrases used this year:
Peace enforcement
Used by President Dmitry Medvedev after Georgian troops were removed from South Ossetia: "I have made a decision to end operations forcing Georgian authorities to peace."
The phrase is now being used in legal practice to describe any action of subduing individuals who resist arrest.
To rattle smb
President Medvedev: "Our law-enforcement bodies should stop rattling business." Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, too, used the term during his recent televised Q&A session: "The banks shouldn't rattle mortgage holders."
The word has become widely used to describe household/office problems: "My boss/neighbour/wife/mother-in-law has been rattling me."
"Why only one?" asked Putin, the question being: "Is it true that you said you were going to hang Saakashvili by one of his body parts?"
There was an unconfirmed media story that Putin had threatened to do something like that to [Georgian President Mikheil] Saakashvli for attacking South Ossetians and Russian peacekeepers last summer. However, Mr Putin himself never admitted to having issued the threat.
"We'll call for a doctor and clean up the situation," Putin said about Igor Zyuzin, the head of mining giant Mechel, who sold coal abroad at half the price he charged domestic consumers bringing Putin's wrath upon himself.
"That crook stole the plane," Putin said at a joint news conference with his Ukrainian counterpart Yulia Tymoshenko after Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko had taken the pane she was preparing to use to fly to Moscow.
"If one just sits there thinking of how everything is going down, nothing will ever come up again."
Putin said after the high-profile Q&A session when asked by a KP correspondent if he wasn't afraid that his popularity might fall amid the global financial crisis, dropping salaries and increasing unemployment.
It's good advice not only for politicians worried about their ratings, but also for everyone's daily lives.
"I am scrimping and saving. I don't have my hair cut, I shave every other day, eat very little, never go out, never invite people over or buy them gifts," said LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky describing his model of anti-crisis behaviour.
"Those who don't have a billion can just f*** off," Sergei Polonsky, head of a large construction company, said at a glamorous party before the crisis. His curse must have fallen upon his own head, since the chic builder recently announced his inability to complete a most ambitious project, the Moscow City international business centre.
Compiled by Larisa Kaftan
