i wrote this on fb but can't resist sharing everywhere
warning: profanity.
in russian dick (huy) keeps ruining innocent words
the letter h (x) user to be called "her" (pronounced kinda like the first syllable of jerez). however now the name of the letter itself is deemed too obscene (in the alphabet it's called ha). well it's been seen as obscene for like 100+ years.
"hernia" also used to exist in russian as a medical word but that got ruined too. it's now seen as a derivation of "her". it actually got parallel versions like huynia (more obscene obv) and fignia (milder). btw figa (fig) also got ruined by loose association, it's mostly used to mean a relatively mild gesture (same as "got your nose"), but the dick connotation is still present somewhere in the background.
these all roughly mean bullshit nowadays, and perhaps exist mostly because to "suffer hernia" used to mean to skip army (as rich kids did), and hence to be lazy, do nothing etc. nowadays the connection with the army is gone.
the current word dick is ruining is hren. it means horseradish but people often chuckle/blush when they use it, and the other meaning is used as a pun in marketing etc.
edit: also, "nifigá", "nihuya", "niherá", "nihrená" means nothing (not a fig/not a dick). these are also used in synonyms of "nichego sebe" (wow), and I guess that's why they're normally written as one word nowadays... lol can't help remembering a joke about describing fireworks to someone who hasn't seen them - "first there's nihuya, and then nihuya sebe!"
nihuya also eventually developed an antonym in "do huya/dohuya", or again a more mild form dofiga
these mean "a lot", smth like "up to the dick".
oh and of course there's the golden trio of
nahuy, pohuy, nehuy, which are covered by urbandictionary*. they're often shortened, perhaps both to make it ambiguous whether you mean nahuy or nahren, and because they're so common
German nach also makes us laugh, and there are some puns about that
*nehren/nefig/nehuy are basically nechego
glossary: хуй, хер, херня, хуйня, фигня, хрен, фига; страдать хернёй (фигнёй, хуйнёй); нифига, нихуя, нихера, нихрена; ничего себе; дохуя, дофига, дохера, дохрена; нахуй/нахрен/нафиг, похуй/похрен/пофиг, нехуй/нехрен/нефиг/нечего
btw i refuse to use kh for the russian x until ppl learn that it has nothing with k and it's never pronounced as k. just say h and it's close enough. (i'm speaking of those who aren't learning russian!) if you want to discuss this part of my post please do it outside my log