"Cotton" is a thing of the past. Let's keep working on our vocabulary!

Let's all jot down this newspeak from the Ivanovo Region Ministry of Emergency Situations: "Artificial initiation of combustion." Don't be alarmed! That's what rescuers called the arson that caused the fire in a private home in the village. Savino.

“They just don’t know the word ‘arson,’” locals suggested on social media.

"The phrase 'artificial initiation of combustion' has been widely used by investigators within the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations for a long time," responded Anastasia Andrianova, an employee of the Ivanovo Region Directorate of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations. "They should be ashamed of themselves for using such language against rescuers! Work on expanding your vocabulary; then you'll learn many more new words."

"That phrase wasn't used during an investigation, but in an official announcement to ordinary people," another local resident rightly noted. "In such cases, one should use standard Russian, not specialized terms that are often only understood by specialists."

The day before, residents Astrakhan area We learned another example of Newspeak—when a "cloud of natural gas" engulfed the regional capital. Why did it cause locals to choke and asthmatics to use inhalers nonstop? The author of the expression—the governor—was Igor Grandma's — he didn’t explain.

Earlier in Tatarstan The explosion, also known as the "bang," was called a "side reaction with the release of energy," and the drone bombing of a freight train in Volgograd area — "interference of outsiders."