Ill start:
“Me cago en tus muertos” - ill shit all over your dead relatives. Spanish.
كول هوا
“Kawl hawa”
Literally “eat air” in Arabic
Means shut up
Oh that is fantastic. I need to use that one.
That’s hilarious
In Quebec French, people sometimes say of someone who’s not particularly bright:
“His mom rocked him/her too close to the wall.”
It’s just so… vivid and random.
Oh cool, we have a very similar one in German: “His/her swing stood too close to the wall.”
Wait I’ve never heard this! so like
“Sa mère l’a bercé trop proche du mur”?
Yes, exactly! Or, “Ya été bercé trop proche du mur.”
Amazing thanks!
A strong insult in french would be to tell that someone has been “fini à la pisse”.
I don’t know how to translate that but it would means that their dad did not have enough sperm so he used urine to conceive them.
German: “Dich soll der Blitz beim Scheißen treffen” - Lightning shall strike you while you’re taking a shit
Best insult ever, imo.
Salame
Yes that’s right, it means salami and in spanish it’s used to call someone an idiot. Soft insult, but I use it, and saying so and so is a salami in english would only get me weird looks.
Seems to be used in Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay. Being from Spain, I’ve never heard Salami being used as an insult.
Calling someone a ‘silly sausage’ in English is a very gentle way to say they are being foolish, sometimes endearingly. Typically it’s used for children. So not far off!
Never heard that one! Interesting
I am going to use it. Ie. You got a salami in that noggin?
English has https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gammon_(insult)
“Spargeltarzan”, which is German for “asparagus Tarzan”. Basically someone who is physically weak, but tall and lanky.
I also like “Lauch”, which just translates to “leek”, the veggie. Oh, and “Bohnenstange”, which means bean stalk. We do seem to have quite a few vegetable-related insults in German, now that I think of it…
Yiddish is not my native language but I think this one is so good it absolutely deserves a mention:
All of your teeth shall fall out except one that gives you a massive toothache.
In polish, calling people with the neutral gender. It’s a grave insult which implies lack of agency and dehumanisation, and thank to some rightwinger assholes in parliament is also a specific transphobic insult now.
While in english it’s completely normal thing to say if you’re not sure of a person’s gender.
So definitely not my “favourite”, i would never said this to anyone in polish and i occasionally get a hiccup of misgendering someone in english because of that, but interesting from language point of view.
While in english it’s completely normal thing to say if you’re not sure of a person’s gender.
Well…
You can use “they” without being insulting, as it still presumes personhood, but if you call someone “it” you’re dehumanizing them and stripping personhood from them, as “it” is used for objects and things, not people. It sounds like what you’re translating would be closer to “it” in English than “them” or “they”.
Yes but “it” in polish is specifically belonging to the neutral gender. There’s a bit more nuance there if you add context of sentence but it’s pretty much build in. Polish equivalent of “they” or “them” is specifically 3rd person plural and cannot be used in singular and in 2nd person.
Here are a few Austrian ones:
“Häferl” (Cup): someone with anger management issues
“Du rüttelst am Watschenbaum” (You are shaking the slap tree): I’m close to deliver the fruit of said tree to you.
“Ohrwaschlkaktus” (Ear cactus): Someone with large, protruding ears
“Saubauch” (Hog belly): A way of telling someone that they are fat and dumb at the same time. But in a nice way.
In the dialect of the Italian province I’m from, my favorite insult is “Perdabàll”, which literally means “balls loser” as someone who’s so stupid and useless that could even manage to lose his testicles
I thought you were gonna say it means someone who’s married.
No but for that we use another genital: we say “S’é infigá” which roughly translates to “He got pussy-ed”, meaning someone that got enslaved by a vagina
三小 in Taiwanese literally translates as “what sperm?” But it means “what the fuck”.
the full saying is 看三小/看啥小
literally “see what semen?”
meaning more like “the f*** you looking at?”
you can also say 供 (講) 三小 which means what the fuck are you saying?
There’s a good one in Cantonese I learned from Hong Kong movies. It translates to “Are you talking?” but the implication is “You’re making noise, but is that supposed to be human speech?” Lei guuung yeieh!?
“Κλάσε μου τα αρχίδια” which literally stands for “fart my balls” in Greek.
It’s a way of telling someone to go fuck himself.
Which can also be lovely further embellished such as “πάρε φορά και κλάσε μου τ’αρχιδια” (“take momentum and fart my testicles”) or “θα μου κλάσεις μια μάντρα αρχίδια” (“You’ll fart me a yard of testicles”, usually utilized as a defiant answer to a physical threat)
“Enculeur de poules mortes” which basically means dead chicken fucker. It’s translatable but sounds so much better in french.
I have never heard this in my life. Where are you from?
Quebec but it’s more of a closed circle thing.
Probably Quebec or Montreal.
Eww, gross.
spoiler
Just kidding y’all :)
Something about how fancy French sounds, juxtaposed with how vulgar the insult is, that makes it stick.
Like a guy in a tuxedo, but with his junk out
In English it’s more like a guy at Walmart in sweatpants with his junk out; not that shocking
Oh, I’ve several. Irish people love a good curse.
Go mbrise an diabhal do dhá chois May the devil break your legs
Go ndéana an diabhal dréimire do chnámh do dhroma May the devil make a ladder out of your spine
Go n-imí an droch aimsir leat That the bad weather leaves with you
Go n-ithe an cat thú is go n-ithe an diabhal an cat May the cat eat you and may the devil eat the cat
And my personal favourite: Lá breá ag do chairde, dod adhlacadh May your friends have a fine day, burying you
Du hast doch nicht alle Tassen im Schrank - German, you don’t have all your cups in the drawer.
Telling someone he is stupid via comparison to cups. Why? Who knows.
Storing cups in drawers, huh.
“Schrank” is not really a drawer. Translating it as “cupboard” would be more appropriate, I think.
Ah, maybe. My vocabulary for kitchen furniture is a bit unclear sometimes what equates to what.
Schrank would be a box with doors and several levels of storage inside.
Reminds me of ones like “You’re one fry short of a Happy Meal”, or “You’ve lost some marbles”. They generally imply that you’ve lost or are missing some mental faculties.
It’s like saying somebody is not the sharpest tool in the shed.
My favorite way to say that somebody is stupid is to say “Er ist dumm wie drei Meter Feldweg”, translates to “he’s as dumb as three meters (a bit more than 9 yards) of dirt road”.
Altough it’s more like a “gypsy curse”, but there’s one that translates to sth like “I wish you’ll having ten rings but none fingers”
