Ill start:
“Me cago en tus muertos” - ill shit all over your dead relatives. Spanish.
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.
Is it kind of like calling someone “it” as an insult in English?
Pretty much yes, the closest thing that would be.
I’d say so, and I’ve seen it used in the same transphobic contexts.
In polish, calling people with the neutral gender…While in english it’s completely normal thing to say if you’re not sure of a person’s gender.
Maybe I misunderstand, but you should never call someone “it” in English, except for animals and babies. Calling someone “it” is considered dehumanizing in English.
Yes, what i meant that in english you call people in 3rd person “them”, “they” regardless of their gender, but in polish neutral gender would always be “it”. That’s why it’s so insulting to use it despite it is gramatically existing. Polish had pronouns literally build in every noun, verb and adjective.
This seems like a thing in Slavic languages in general. In Russian the equivalent is “одушевленные и неодушевленные существительные” - animate, and inanimate objects, so I guess they add one extra pronoun to the usual three, which is just for objects. I think some genderqueer people prefer using the plural pronoun in that case (“они” instead of “оно”). Is that possible in Polish?
The neutral gender is perfectly grammatical in polish, just it was never used for people other than small babies, i seen some effort to use it in literature for gender fluid or genderless people but it’s rare and don’t get positive reviews. It might catch some day though, i don’t know.
German: “Du Lappen”
Translates to “You rag”, pretty much calling someone a loser or idiot.
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.
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.
Oh cool, we have a very similar one in German: “His/her swing stood too close to the wall.”
Portuguese is full of these, but how about vai pra casa do caralho.
Which roughly translates to “go to the dick’s home”, basically another way of saying “go fuck yourself”, but even more vulgar somehow.
Portuguese here. “Diz que vais cagar e baza”, which translates to “Say you go shit and get outa here”, when someone is not welcome.
Brazil “eu caguei e andei” (I shat and walked). Functionally equivalent to “I don’t give a shit” but in Portuguese one actually shits but doesn’t care to wipe and walks away or walks at the same as is shitting.
Oh, another one: “deves comer gelados com a testa”, which translates to “you must eat icecream with your forehead”, a not so soft way to call someone stoopid
I’ve heard ‘caralho’ used to be the name for the lookout on top of a ship’s mast (later turned into yet another word for dick) and sailors were sent to duty on the caralho as punishment?
I’m not Portuguese though, so if any native could confirm …
Triangeljosti.
The Jostiband is a Dutch orchestra for people with a developmental disability, mainly people with down syndrome.
A [triangle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_(musical_instrument\)) , or triangel in Dutch, is possibly the simplest instrument you can think of.
So calling someone a ‘triangeljosti’ is basically comparing them to someone who plays the simplest possible instrument in a band for developmentally disabled people.
This reminds me of the not-very-edifying-at-all moment when “joey” became a universal term of abuse in UK playgrounds.
I’m wheezing. Never heard it before but the image is livid in my head.
That’s so specific. lmao
That just sounds like ableism
I mean, OP asked for insults. You should be prepared to see some you don’t like (which is the point of an insult after all).
Well, yeah, it’s an insult so it’s not exactly meant to be flattering for either the insulted party or the person they are being compared to.
Never heard that one being used, though.
It’s not super common but I do hear it on occasion.
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.
“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…
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.
“mange tes morts” in french, can be translated to “eat your deads” which is like go fuck yourself
German: “Dich soll der Blitz beim Scheißen treffen” - Lightning shall strike you while you’re taking a shit
Best insult ever, imo.
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 Tamil: சோத்துல உப்பு போட்டு தான தின்ற?
Translation: Don’t you add salt to your food?
Context: This is when somebody doesn’t react/listen/change no matter how much they are insulted. The other party asks if they add salt to their food, or if they only eat bland food, and thus have lost all emotions and have become as bland as their food.
It’s a bit difficult to explain, but the general belief is that food reflects your emotions and reactance and moods. Bland food - emotionless, spicy food - easy to anger, etc.
Not my native language but the German language has some pretty fantastic words/insults like “punchable face” (backpfeifengesicht) and “brain denier” (gehirnverweigerer).
“Dich soll der Blitz beim Scheißen treffen!”
May lightning strike you while you shit. One of my personal favourites.
Also Knödelfriedhof (dumpling graveyard) for obese people is kind of funny I think.
I hadn’t heard that one before but your opinion is objectively wrong: It’s not “kind of funny”, it’s hilarious.
People got banned from Reddit for less.
I caught a ban from reddit for pointing out that COVID 19 could kill you. This was during the height of the pandemic too.
People caught bans for some spectacularly stupid stuff on reddit and their reporting system is straight up broken, so plenty of bad shit goes ignored indefinitely.
Argentinian here, I find very funny that a while ago somebody decided to express frustration saying la concha del pato or la concha del mono (lit. “vagina of the male duck” or “monkey”). Yes, the absurdity of a male animal with a female organ seems to reinforce the obscenity somehow.
Nunca escuché la del pato. De qué parte de Argentina?
- Γαμώ το σπίτι σου (literally: fuck your house) I guess this basically means to fuck your whole family
- Γαμώ τη Παναγία σου (literally: fuck your Saint Mary)
- Γαμώ το Χριστό σου (literally: fuck your Jesus)
- Να μου κλάσεις τον πούτσο (literally: fart my dick) I guess this means “I’ll fuck you from behind”
- Πάρ’τα 3 μου (literally: take my 3) The 3 is implied for balls, and they’re 3 instead of 2 because it’s more manly I guess lmao
- Κλάσε μου τα 3 (literally: fart my 3) A combination of the previous two
- Αρχίδι (literally: testicle) You can actually call someone a testicle in Greek
If you rotate a 3 clockwise it becomes a pair of balls
We have something similar to “fuck your house”. “Fuck your couch” is a popular insult in American English thanks to Rick James and The Chappele Show. Still, “fuck your house” is more extreme because I guess it includes the couch, too.
Those are all amazing insults that you listed, btw.
