5

Korova (Russian)

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Means: It literally translates to cow, but in this context it's "a guy you take along on a prison break so you can eat him later."

The Russian Gulag system is one of the greatest examples of a government succeeding in exactly what they hoped to achieve -- a place where prisoners could literally work themselves to death generating free labor for the Motherland, because maintaining prisons where the goal is to keep prisoners alive is expensive, and executions cost money, too. Why not kill two birds with one rationed potato?

Scattered all across the country, these forced labor camps were not only where the Soviet Union stashed away their most violent offenders, but also those convicted of things as petty as theft or malcontent (the legal term for speaking ill of Joseph Stalin's mustache). At the system's peak in the mid-20th century, millions of people were interned in the prison camps. Conditions there were so subhuman that the only reason the Gulag's camps takes a historical backseat to the Nazis' concentration camps is that the Soviet Union helped defeat Hitler.

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4

Rhaphanidosis (Greek)

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Means: shoving a horseradish root up an adulterer's ass.

3

Tsujigiri (Japanese)

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Means: murdering a random stranger with your sword.

Samurai radiated badassedness in Japan centuries before Westerners thought they were awesome enough to include in a Tom Cruise movie about Japan. They were so revered (and feared) that, legally, they were pretty much allowed to do as they damn well pleased. Nowhere is this more evident than the kiri-sute gomen prerogative, which literally gave them permission to "cut and leave." Basically, they could straight-up murder someone for little-to-no reason. It was justifiable punishment for acts such as, surliness, discourtesy, and inappropriate conduct. Basically, you could rip an errant fart next to a samurai, and he would have legal grounds to cut your fucking head off.

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2

Snokhachestvo (Russian)

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Means: turning your daughter-in-law into your personal sex slave.

To understand the horrific family constellation that is snokhachestvo, we must first travel back in time to the Russian Empire. More precisely, to the Cossack villages on the eastern brim of Europe, at the very fringes of civilization. Families lived on tiny farms where everyone -- man, woman, and child -- had to work their fingers to the bone just to get by. To alleviate some of the burden, it was a widespread custom to force the boys of the house into early marriage, because then the new wife could move in and essentially become the real-life Cinderella of the household ("real-life Cinderella" is a term here meaning "domestic slave"). Stranded in a house full of complete strangers, she would be bullied around and expected to do all the shit jobs that even people who work shit jobs for a living don't want to do -- including having sex with her husband's father.

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1

Wa'ada (Classical Arabic)

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Means: to bury one's infant daughter alive.

Being a parent is hard work, because children are like little parasites who take everything they can from you (time, money, natural resources) and produce nothing in return. But we love them anyway, because for all the hard work it takes to be a parent, it's the most fulfilling job in the world (and also we're evolutionarily programmed to do so).

But this was less true among the tribes of pre-Islamic Arab people. They didn't specifically hate the idea of raising children, but the thought of giving birth to a girl was so abhorrent that they devised a horrific method to avoid it, post-factum. This method was called wa'ada, and you may want to take a tiny break to go roll around in a giant pile of puppies before we continue.

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When it came time to give birth, the expectant mother retreated to a ditch and waited there for her progeny to come screaming out of her vagina. If the baby was a boy, she swaddled him up and returned proudly back to her friends and neighbors. If the child was a girl, the mother would simply leave the girl in the ditch and unceremoniously fill it with dirt, burying the baby alive on the spot and thus avoiding the nasty social consequences of having produced female offspring.

This abysmal practice continued until a certain famous women's rights activist and perpetrator of reason came along and catapulted Arabic society into modern times. We're of course talking about Muhammad, beard enthusiast and prophet extraordinaire, who had a thing or two to say about wa'ada. Well, just one thing, really, which can be paraphrased as "That's freaking crazy, please knock it off." The spread of Islam abolished the unholy practice and upgraded a woman's worth from "broodmare" to ... um, as good as one-fourth of a man, in marriage. Still, that's progress, right?

Heyer would like to thank everyone who made suggestions in the comments, especially reader Komsomoletz for finding snokhachestvo.

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