Yanukism

Yanukisms (янукізми) is a humorous term for various linguistic blunders and mistakes that Ukrainian politicians make. The phenomenon is named after the previous president Viktor Yanukovych who was trying to put up a façade of a well-educated man but ended up embarrassing himself due to numerous mistakes.

One of the best known examples of a Yanukism is probably proffesor, which got started as Yanukovych misspelled the academic title in his registration form during the 2004 presidential election. It became an internet meme and a nickname of Yanukovych. In the same form, Yanukovych made in total 12 different mistakes: he misspelled the names of his wife and his hometown. In addition, Yanukovych has made so many other mistakes that his doctor's degree in economics has been called into question. Also, the fact that Yanukovych was among the best-selling authors of Ukraine in the early 2010s raised questions about the true author of his books due to all his past mistakes.

Yanukisms can also be manifested by factual mistakes instead of misspellings or other mistakes language-wise. Yanukovych has said among other things that Mount Athos is located in Palestine (actually in Greece), called the 2022 Winter Olympics 'a World Championship' and said that Israel is a European country.