Ill start:
“Me cago en tus muertos” - ill shit all over your dead relatives. Spanish.
Teletubbyzurückwinker.
Someone that waves back at the Teletubbies.
This is by far the best one.
No harsh words or vulgarity but lots of emotional damage.
Schnitzelkind. Breaded-veal kid (wienerschnitzel / milanesa). Basically a kid so ugly, that the parents needed to put a schnitzel around his neck so that at least the dogs would play with him.
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Mieren neuker
Nice overview! I do not have any proof of this, but I think “Godverdomme”, which is still very common, is a bit unique because rather that God damning it or -you, it translates to God Damn Me.
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Heya. I’m an American, and I’ve got to say thank you. I seriously look forward to calling someone a “ball violin” in English, but if fully intend to add klootviool and and klootzak to my day to day swear bank. Those are so satisfying to say!
Just don’t forget that the “oo” is pronounced as the “oh” in “oh shit” and not like the “oo” in “cool” or “mood”. Same for the “a” in “zak”. It’s closer to “ahhh” as in “oooohh and ahhh” or “pasta” than it is to the “a” in “back”
Bravo! A perfect write-up. You’re making us proud.
I also quite like the word ‘droeftoeter’, meaning a sad/depressing person. The closest thing would be the word ‘loser’ in English.
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‘Sad trombone’ would be an apt translation, as the sound of refers to is exactly like the meaning of the insult.
Not that it’s untranslatable, but I enjoy it quite a lot.
Поцілуй бузька в калатало - go kiss a stork on the knocker.
If you ever heard storks, you’ll recognize the dismissiveness of this statement.
Greetings from Poland.
“bambaryła” - someone who is very silly. Also: someone who is very fat. A little old-fashioned.
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.
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”.
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.
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.
German Korinthenkacker (currant shitter) is someone who tries to win an argument by looking at unimportant details.
Calling a male a “nephew” in Chinese 契弟 kai dai is calling them a male prostitute.
Usually it doesn’t mean target male has actually been used sexually, but commonly used for general belittlement.
This term comes from ancient times: Traveling businessmen who would take a young boy with them for sexual use, but if anyone on the road or destination asked who the boy was, the business man would euphemistically explain “He’s my nephew”
契弟 kai dai is commonly translated as “nephew” but it means “adopted brother”
That’s not exact:
- Me cago en tus muertos = I shit on your ancestors / I shit on your dead relatives.
- Me cago en todos tus muertos = I shit on all of your ancestors / I shit on all of your dead relatives.
And in the theme of insults from Spain, a loaded one is also: Me cago en tu puta madre = I shit on your fucking mother / I shit on your whore mother
See, the thing with “puta/puto” is that it literally means “whore”, but it’s used to empathize cursings just like “fucking” is used in english. We’re even misusing it by putting it before verbs, imitating it’s use in english.
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.
Probably “sluta vara en så lagom rolig person”. It isn’t directly an insult. However, it’s not something you would love to hear. It translates to “stop being a person who has the just right amount of fun”.
Another thing my friends say when they are med is: “Din jävla ångvält!” which translates to “You fucking steamroller!”.
It just sounds much better in Swedish.Brazilian portuguese tends to lack impactful phrases, but is full of single curse words. A big portion of them a clear example of how much negative bias there is culturally against certain groups (gay men, women in general, disabled), unfortunately :/
One that isn’t often used, but that I almost always laugh loud whenever I hear, is “Enfia uma dentadura no cu e sorria pro caralho”, which roughly translates into “Stick a denture up your asshole and smile at the dick”. For when simply saying “go fuck yourself” isn’t enough.
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”
In Bulgaria we have the very creative insult „You’re as sharp as an edge on a round table”, which I find pretty amusing
Cartoon character Foghorn Leghorn, a caricature of an American southern gentleman, comes pretty close when he describes another character as “about as sharp as a bowling ball”
Wow so much lost in translation. I grew up with dubbed looney tunes, never knew he was supposed to be a gentleman let alone that it had a regional flavour. For me it was just a quirky rooster.
Very Belgian: He doesn’t have all his fries in the same bag / Il n’a pas toutes ses frites dans le même sachet
Meaning that he’s/she’s dumb or confused :D
Similar to “He’s one can short of a six pack”
The English equivalent being, “She is several chicken nuggets short of a happy meal”
The German equivalent is “Not all cups in the cupboard”
The Australian equivalent is “a few snags (sausages) short of a barbie (barbeque)”
A few sandwiches short of a picnic.
A few cards short of a deck.
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.
English has https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gammon_(insult)
Seems to be used in Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay. Being from Spain, I’ve never heard Salami being used as an insult.
