A story about cursing in Ukraine

“Banglemop,” he says, dragging out the vowels, nodding, squinting.

We’re sitting in a booth, in the basement of some bar in Lviv. Why is it that the basement is the cool place to go, the place where you’re the most unseen. The place that’s the sweatiest, the stuffiest, the most full of hookah smoke.

But our new friends led us here, and they seem to know what’s what.

We met them the night before at Pyana Vyshnya, the Drunk Cherry. It sells one drink and one drink only: cherry liqueur. You can have it warm or cold, in a Soviet-era wine glass or plastic cup, on its own or on top of ice cream.

The view from Lviv Town Hall.

Tonight we’re talking politics. And their love, our love, for Ukraine. We’re cheersing. We’re laughing. We’re making up words.

Like banglemop.

It’s pronounced how it looks. Bang-gl-mop. Banglemop.

They all speak great English, meaning we don’t have to string together bits and pieces of conversation based on our not-so-fluent Ukrainian skills. But being who we are, we want to give them a hard time.

So my friend and I tell one of them a made-up swear word: banglemop.

We tell him as if we’re letting him in on some secret, some confidential information that will get him far in life.

We say it’s the worst swear possible in the English language. In Ukraine, there are levels to curse words. And if you utter one of the top-level ones, even the most vulgar person will stare at you in disbelief. Many of these swears come from the Russian language — Ukrainian curses are truly curses: May you be kicked by a duck. May hair grow on your tongue.

The person we just told this crucial information to sits back in his black hat, black hoodie, leaning up against the booth. “Banglemop,” he says, using the word for the first time, nodding in approval, feeling as cool as a middle schooler saying the f-word.

He says it time to time, no one understanding him except for the three of us, not even the other Canadians. But their questioning looks fit in with the story.

Eventually, we tell him. That banglemop is not a word. That Canadian English doesn't have creative curses.

All this to say, if your usual swear words just aren’t cutting it these days, might I suggest banglemop.