“You can’t shine a turd” — meaning, essentially, “garbage in, garbage out”

“assjack” is the pillow one keeps in his truck to elevate the pelvis when gettin busy in the truck

“you can’t fly with the eagles when you’re peckin shit with the chickens” — meaning you will never amount to much if you keep on selling yourself short

“roll-away teeth and pistol grip ears” a horrible, horribly mysogynistic description of a woman who engages in frequent acts of ardour.

I am going to hell for this

Meaning; Who pissed on your sugar sandwich? Funny only because I remember eating toast with butter and sugar on top as a kid.

Also a funny, although not profane, Swedish saying; Ingen ko på isen. Meaning, no cow on the ice. As in, not to worry, there is no problem here. I assume a cow on the ice would be a bad thing.

Oh, and useful word in Swedish: Sugen. Which I guess translates directly to (be) sucked. Meaning you have a craving. Jag är sugen på kaffe = I am sucked on coffee = I am craving on coffee = I crave coffee.

its maori, and roughly means “boiled head” (‘upoko’ meaning head and ‘kohua’ meaning to boil), stemming from the fact that maori tribes would sometimes engage in acts of cannibalism after defeating another tribe in battle – the defeated tribes chief or war party leader would be decapitated, his head boiled then eaten, as the ultimate gesture of disrespect.

because it is just as much a promise as it is an insult, “pokokohua” is therefore the harshest word in the maori language, and is never used in its proper sense anymore.

Great, now I’m gonna have to find it. This could take all day. Thanks, Boing-Boing. I should be raking leaves.

I remember this meme from ’99 starting with “Warmducher” (Person who needs their shower to be warm). My favourite I think was “Parkplatzblinker” (someone who uses their turn indicator while in a carpark.

As previously indicated, yes, the Germans are weird.

“como rascarle las bola a un muerto” “like scratching the balls of the dead.”- meaning an action has no effect. not really an insult, but a great turn of phrase.

it would be hard to translate the african american construction “__(verb)_______ like a motherfucker” as well.

Sono cazzi –> It’s dicks; meaning something is going terribly wrong.
Non ci sono cazzi –> There’s no dicks; meaning there’s nothing to be done about a situation.
Pisciare fuori dal vaso –> to piss outside the pot; indicating that someone is behaving out of context.
Cacarsi in mano –> to shit in one’s hand; indicating that someone is very scared.

Many, many more exist, but my favourite has to be:

è così sfortunato che se gli cascasse il cazzo, gli rimbalzerebbe in culo –> he’s so unlucky that if his dick fell off it would bounce straight into his ass.

Among others, “dit help so veel soos muis-piepie in die see” (About as effective as mouse wee-wee in the ocean)

Not the best, but as an Afrikaans speaker, I think the one you have listed sounds like it came from the Afrikaner equivalent of /b/.

Anyway regarding strange insults… it strikes me that at least 2/3 of the US English ones given in the comments here on BB, like “pissing in your cornflakes” or “bastard-hard as cunting-fuck” are not only easily translatable, but terribly uncreative and certainly don’t involve clever wordplay.

I think we need some UK readers to show how it’s done in (the Queen’s) English!

‘Dem geht der Arsch auf Grundeis.’

‘His arse is touching bottom-ice.’

Meaning that person is really worried about something, usually a touch and go situation.

A rather old one is ‘Maulaffen feilhalten’. Direct translation involves muzzle-monkeys and an acient term for selling. Looking it up, it actually dates back to a 13th century term about kindling that you held in your mouth while lighting a fire.

The sense of the term is ‘to stand gaping’.

“peel coon noose see yah”

Also, finnish is written phonetically, so you can refer back to the word itself.

Now go spread the cheer!

My favorite personal coinage is “all foreplay and no fuck”, meaning someone who talks a big game, but never does anything.