Ill start:
“Me cago en tus muertos” - ill shit all over your dead relatives. Spanish.
Teletubbyzurückwinker.
Someone that waves back at the Teletubbies.
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Mieren neuker
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.
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”
“Te falta una patata para el kilo” (in Spanish)
English: “You’re missing one potato for the kilo.”
When you want to call someone a fool or an idiot, you question if they’re in their right mind, if they use their head before speaking or doing something.
Spanish from Spain, right?
In Argentina we say
- “Le faltan jugadores” (He/she is short of a few [football/soccer] players)
- “Le faltan caramelos en el frasco” (He/she is missing candies in the jar)
“Le faltan jugadores” (He/she is short of a few [football/soccer] players)
no fucking way lol
Heard one: Your mother has a penis and your father is jealous of it.
German: “Du Lappen”
Translates to “You rag”, pretty much calling someone a loser or idiot.
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.
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
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.
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 …
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.
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.
That’s so specific. lmao
I’m wheezing. Never heard it before but the image is livid in my head.
Never heard that one being used, though.
It’s not super common but I do hear it on occasion.
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.
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.”
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 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.
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.
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.
“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…
Not my native language but the German language has some pretty fantastic words/insults like “punchable face” (backpfeifengesicht) and “brain denier” (gehirnverweigerer).
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.
“Dich soll der Blitz beim Scheißen treffen!”
May lightning strike you while you shit. One of my personal favourites.
My personal favourites from Finnish.
“Ei ole kaikki muumit Muumilaaksossa” “Not having all the Moomins in Moomin Valley” Used for people who are either stupid or lack sanity. There are other variants of this and Moomin one is not older than a couple of decades.
I find our version of Grammar Nazi pretty great. We call them comma fuckers.
“Ei voi kauhalla ottaa jos on lusikalla annettu” “You can’t take with a ladle if it was given with a spoon”. This refers also to a lack of something, usually a lack of intelligence or sense.
“Not having all the Moomins in Moomin Valley”
That’s totally something we’ll use. Thanks :D Also I’m stealing that. I’m stealing that insult and Americanizing it and you can’t stop me
Just be warned Moomins are a gateway to communism (Weird internet theory). Or at least to more Moomins. We literally have Moomin everything here.
In Denmark you have:
- Paragraph Knight - someone who cares too much about rules and regulations.
- Fly Fucker - someone who cares too much about something deeply insignificant.
In German there is “Paragraphenreiter” - Paragraph rider.
