I believe it means minstrels who became clowns.
I’ve heard this before from a Russian speaker. I don’t understand how it got written this way. It drives me a little nuts trying to imagine how it became written as such. A translation that got fucked repeatedly until finally it was only bots reprinting it?
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“cum” is Latin for “with” and is sometimes used in English to show that something is two things at once, so “minstrel-cum-clown” would be someone who is both a minstrel and a clown
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I wouldn’t consider it odd to see it between two English words. ‘Seminar-cum-workshop’ is one example I found with plenty of search results.
It’s also used (with the same meaning) in English place names e.g. the Beegees are from Chorlton-cum-Hardy.Removed by mod
Prominent historical title for Putin.