ProbableNamed from the place
Russian reversal
noun · first attested 1980s
A Cold War stage bit that outlived the country it was mocking.
A joke built by swapping subject and object, so that in Soviet Russia the thing does it to you.
Record
- Relationship
- Named from the place
- Confidence
- ProbableThe conventional story is likely, with caveats.
- Attested
- 1980s
- Part of speech
- noun
Explanations here are written for this atlas. Dictionary text is not copied; the sources are linked so the claim can be checked.
- Step 1
Russia
- In English
Russian reversal
The format is associated with the comedian Yakov Smirnoff, who worked it into American routines in the 1980s, although similar reversals circulated before him. The label Russian reversal is later and comes from the internet, which kept the joke running long after the Soviet Union stopped existing.
Also pinned to Russia
2 more from the same place
Russia
All 11 entries 8 more words from Russia
astrakhanThe curled fleece is named for a city on the Volga delta.AstrakhanBorodino breadA dark rye named after the bloodiest single day of Napoleon's Russian campaign.BorodinoBorodinsky breadThe bread is named for the bloodiest single day of the Napoleonic wars.BorodinoburpaliteAn obscure alkaline intrusion in the mountains north of Lake Baikal has produced a long list of minerals found nowhere else.Severo-Baykalsky DistrictChegetRussia's nuclear command kit is named after a ski mountain in the Caucasus.ChegetdubniumThis element carried two rival names for nearly thirty years before a committee settled the argument.DubnaKotlinNamed after an island on purpose, because Java is an island too.Kotlin IslandturgiteA mineral that was unnamed twice: once for the species and once when X-rays showed it was a mixture.Krasnoturyinsk