“Now for one million dollars: what is the capital of Ukraine?”

“That would be Kiev.”

“I’m sorry you are politically incorrect. The answer is Kyiv.”

“That’s what I said: Kiev.”

“I’m afraid you said Kee Ev, the answer is in fact Keev. Off to the Gulag, I mean re-education camps for you!”

If you have noticed since Vlad the Impaler invaded his brethren in the former Soviet Socialist Republic of Ukraine there has been a push to ensure that everyone uses the Ukrainian spelling and pronunciation of their ancient capital Kiev (or Kyiv if you work for The Grauniad – ironic coming from a news organisation renowned for their spelling errors).

We’ve been told that we should now use the Ukrainian versions rather than the Russian because, well, Russia bad and the Ukrainian Nazis are good – just kidding all Nazis are bad and Ukraine doesn’t have any according to their apologists Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Klaus Schwab (who I imagine knows quite a thing or two about identifying Nazis). But as usual I digress.

You see I have a problem being told what to do. Always have. Teachers hated me. I especially hate being told what to do when those people are wrong – and teachers often were. The problem I have is that we speak English – except any non-English speaking people here; you can call Kiev whatever the fuck you want; Little Moscow, Big Minsk, Nuremberg…I don’t give a fuck. No, my issue is with English speaking people.

Why might you ask? Glad you did. Now you must first understand that the city of Kiev is old, like more than a thousand years old. It is the central element in the creation of what would become the Russian people – this is a fact despite the propaganda that western governments are feeding you. I studied Russian history. But again, that is all beside the point. Kiev is old and for all that time we, in the English speaking world, have called it Kiev.

Additionally, it is written in Cyrillic script, and older folk might remember that it isn’t quite the same as our Latin version. Remember the CCCP? Not the same as USSR. But the same place. Of which we would do well to remember Ukraine was once a core part of.

Now my issues with Kyiv and not Kiev has nothing to do with Russia. Putin is a bad man. So is Tony Blair. George Bush (all of them). Barack Obama. And Bill and Hillary Clinton. All bad men. Killed lots of people. Started lots of wars. My issue is the rewriting of language for political purposes. That is propaganda 101. Josef Goebbels would have taught a course on this shit.

We call Germany, Germany. We don’t call it Deutschland. We don’t call Rome, Roma, nor Brazil Brasil. During WWII we didn’t all of a sudden call Poland, Polska. Cause that would be fucking stupid. Our forefathers weren’t fucking idiots. So why do we now call Kiev Kyiv?

Now the powers that be, the ones that tell you what to think all the time, would argue that it is showing respect to Ukraine – that’ll really help them defend their country – although it is more about pissing off Russia and denting their arguments that Ukraine is still part of Mother Russia. However, if that was the case why don’t we call Ukraine Ukrainia? Oh, that’s right because it is just made up politically correct bullshit.

Just remember this: anytime someone tells you what to think, or what to say, or how to say it, then the chances are they are manipulating you at best, and most likely are downright malevolent. They don’t have your interests at heart and don’t care one jot about your wellbeing. Like I would take pronunciation lessons from people that can’t even pronounce ‘data’ correctly!