Moscow Times article

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There's a Word for People Like That

By Michele A. Berdy

Хам трамвайный: a rude SOB, a bastard, a schmuck

If the guy who nearly clips your car making a right turn from the left lane is a наглец (a pushy son of a gun), what do you call the guy who swerves into the oncoming lane -- and then honks the horn and swears at you for not pulling over to let him use your lane? This, ladies and gentlemen, is a хам.

The word in Russian comes from the Bible: Хам (Ham), is one of Noah's three sons -- the one who didn't cover up his father's nakedness. Inherent in the notion of хам and хамство is no sense of decency or shame, as well as an uncultured, low-class crudeness.

One of the original meanings of хам was as a derogatory term for a serf or anyone of the lower classes. This is still heard in the expression, Из хама нe сделаешь пана ("you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear," literally, you can't make a serf into an aristocrat -- pan being the Polish word for a member of the upper class). Now хам refers to anyone who is ill-bred, boorish, crude and rude. Хам трамвайный (literally "a tram lout") is the worst version of the type. В театре он не только занял моё место, он ещё и послал меня. Хам трамвайный! (Not only did he take my seat in the theater, he told me to go to hell. What a schmuck!) Anyone else notice that Yiddish is a good source for translating Russian slang? Definitely another dissertation topic.

Louts come in all shapes, sizes and genders; the female of the breed is хамка. Продавщица мне сказала, что платье мне показывать не станет -- оно мне явно не по карману. Представляешь себе? Какая хамка! (The saleswoman told me she wouldn't even show me the dress, since I clearly couldn't afford it. Can you believe it? What a bitch!)

Хамство is the quality of boorishness that characterizes these creeps. In Russian linguistic and cultural hierarchy, хамство is worse than наглость. Наглость is pushiness and balls; хамство is a kind of shameless, nasty crudeness. You can say of someone, он в меру наглый (he's pretty ballsy, he's got a pushy streak in him) and still like the guy. In fact, he's the kind of guy you want negotiating your next lease. But there's no limit to the хамство of a хам, and no redeeming qualities. Они уволили нашу сотрудницу во время её отпуска. Когда она вышла на работу и попыталась войти в здание, охранники отобрали у неё пропуск. Хамство! (They fired her when she was on vacation, and when she came back and tried to enter the building, the guards took away her pass. What a low-down thing to do!)

Russians, kind-hearted souls, also believe that people can become louts over time; for that they use the verb хаметь. Когда я принимала её на работу, она мне показалась скромной. Но вот прошло два месяца, и она начала хаметь. (She seemed sweet when I hired her. But two months have gone by, and she's started to act up.) Don't confuse this, however, with the verb хамить, which is used far more frequently. It means "to be rude to someone," or, more colloquially in English, to give someone lip, to talk back, to get out of line. Мой сын стал мне хамить. Я не знаю, что с ним делать! (My son has started to talk back to me. I don't know what to do with him!) Я пошла в ЖЭК, чтобы доказать, что я выплатила квартплату вовремя, а бухгалтер мне нахамил. (I went to the housing office to prove that I had paid up my maintenance fees on time, and the bookkeeper gave me lip.) Молодой человек! Как вы смеете мне хамить! (Young man! How dare you get out of line with me!)

So what do you with a хам? In my experience -- nothing. Unless you can get back as good as you get, it's better to walk away. After all, the Bible gave us Ham, but it also gave us Job: practice a little patience. Её муж такой хам -- а она его терпит. У неё терпение Иова. (Her husband is a real bastard, but she puts up with him. She has the patience of Job.)


Michele A. Berdy is a Moscow-based translator and interpreter.