Ill start:
“Me cago en tus muertos” - ill shit all over your dead relatives. Spanish.
Greetings from Poland.
“bambaryła” - someone who is very silly. Also: someone who is very fat. A little old-fashioned.
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.
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.
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)
That’s interesting, I didn’t know. It seems gammon makes reference to the color red and to anger, and according to the link, it has some political connotations. None of that is applicable to salame, it’s not so much about being angry or hot headed in any way, it’s just a way to say someone isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed.
Seems to be used in Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay. Being from Spain, I’ve never heard Salami being used as an insult.
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.
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 …
كول هوا
“Kawl hawa”
Literally “eat air” in Arabic
Means shut up
That’s hilarious
Oh that is fantastic. I need to use that one.
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.”
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.
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.
That’s so specific. lmao
Never heard that one being used, though.
It’s not super common but I do hear it on occasion.
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 just sounds like ableism
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.
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).
German: “Dich soll der Blitz beim Scheißen treffen” - Lightning shall strike you while you’re taking a shit
Best insult ever, imo.
“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…
German Korinthenkacker (currant shitter) is someone who tries to win an argument by looking at unimportant details.
Băga-mi-aș pula-n coliva mă-tii de să-mi sară coaiele din bomboană-n bomboană
This is a highly niche one in my native language as well, as one must also know what is colivă - it’s basically a desert that we eat at funerals with m&m-sized candies in it as well. So it roughly translates let me stick my dick in your mother’s coliva so hard that my balls jump from candy to candy
Does the insult mean the colivā is served at your mother’s funeral, or that it’s the colivā your mother made? Also in what kind of context you use this insult?
I’m not the OP but usage is dealer’s choice. It’s smooth jazz all the way down.
That is elaborate, vulgar, and 100% delightful. I love hearing stuff like this. Cursing in American English is so boring lol
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.
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.
