“Jumos”: a slurry-sounding typo dredges up a slangy, sweary past

One of the stranger items to surface so far from Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury—whose sweary account of the Trump White House I recently covered—is the curious case of jumos.

On the 2016 Trump Tower meeting with a group of Russians, Wolff writes that Bannon said: “The chance that Don Jr. did not walk these Jumos up to his father’s office on the 26th floor is zero.”

Putting aside Bannon’s explosive implication that Trump himself met with the Russians, despite White House denials to the contrary, Bannon’s statement had many scratching their heads: What is a jumo? Specifically, it had Maggie Serota wondering in her January 3rd Spin article: “Did Steve Bannon Invent a New Slur?”

“What a fucking idiot”: Michael Wolff’s sweary account of the Trump White House

Whoo-ee, 2018 started off with a fucking bang, didn’t it? Right on the heels of our third annual Tucker Awards for Excellence in Swearing drop the juicy profanities in Michael Wolff’s controversial Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.

As excerpts and early reviews ahead of its January 9th release are proving, Wolff’s account—apparently based on over 200 interviews with the president, his inner circle, and other staff conducted over 18 months, much as embedded in the West Wing—is blistering. Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon, of all people, called the Trump Tower meeting with Russians “treasonous,” according to Wolff. 

Wolff’s account is also a very sweary one. As Ben Zimmer, who authors our reliably politics-packed Tucker Awards, observed on Twitter:

It's a shame all of this political profanity came too late for @stronglang's year-end Tucker Awards. Some good contenders already for 2018. https://t.co/S8R4NQmWLW https://t.co/p4DUwtoUiq

— Ben Zimmer (@bgzimmer) January 3, 2018

Zimmer’s right, so let’s highlight some choice examples we’ve seen so far. Bannon clearly positions himself as a Tucker favorite, if Wolff’s reports are confirmed. 

A matrix of -shits

Recently, my father and I were enjoying a pleasant train ride through the Irish countryside to visit some family friends. Our conversation, as it does, went to –shit. Chickenshit, specifically.

I don’t recall what occasioned our chuckling about chickenshit, not that one ever needs a reason, but soon our chatter turned to other piles of -shit, e.g., bullshit, batshit, jackshit, the shit-list goes on. This put to mind, of course, Strong Language, where we’ve been well covered in –shit words over the years, memorably Kory Stamper on dipshit, Mark Peters on frogshit, and Ben Zimmer on ripshit.

I was curious about how English’s many species of –shits, whether they be formed by compounding or affixation, relate to one another. So, naturally, I made a matrix—a matrix of –shits—comparing them by kind and degree.

“Shitburger”: swearing, made to order

First there was the nothingburger. Now there’s the shitburger.

In a March column for the Wall Street Journal, Ben Zimmer traced nothingburger’s rise from 1950s Hollywood gossip to Capitol Hill politics. But earlier this week, we got a fresh round of nothingburgers when various people in the Trump camp used it—initially—to describe Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with a Kremlin-connected lawyer during the presidential campaign in June 2016. 

That all changed after Jr. tweeted out emails showing just how eager he was to get dirt on Hillary Clinton from Russia in that meeting. Stephen Colbert had fun with this metaphor of the month during an opening monologue Tuesday night: “Yesterday, Reince Priebus said this whole story is a nothingburger. Well, these emails have turned into an all-you-can-prosecute buffet.”

Others reacted with a much more colorful variant: shitburger. Twitter, as ever, dished up some telling examples:

Trump shitburger just had another patty stacked on. They sure are piling up! #MAGA #FAIL #TRUMPRUSSIA #TrumpJr

— A Yank in OZ (@dennissheehy) July 11, 2017

So, it is not a #NothingBurger after all, it is a GIANT FULL O' GOP SHITBURGER sandwich dressed with Russian condiments.

— Jay Hova (@JHova_83) July 12, 2017

Nothingburger w/fries is now a stinky shitburger served with several super sized crates of lies. https://t.co/dTwHASAwLY

— Vaswati (@vaswati16th) July 14, 2017

Unlike a nothingburger, between the two buns of a shitburger there is a there there—and it’s, um, well, yeah.

‘Taint your balls, ‘taint your ass, but ’tis in the OED

This week, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is out with its latest update. Among its crop of over 600 new words, phrases, and senses, some sweary entries flashed us the come-to-bed eyes on Strong Language—and we don’t mean continental grip, dead rubber, or additions to the many meaning of come, as suggestive as they may sound. From mild abuses to sexual euphemisms to derogatory slang, we’ve got the highlights here.