Glorious, elaborate, profane insults of the world

Cory Doctorow 12:29 am Sat Dec 4, 2010

An open Reddit thread entitled "What are your favorite culturally untranslateable phrases?" rapidly degenerated into a collection of rollicking, profane, grotesque insults, each more alarming and delightful than the last. Read the whole thing, of course, but here are some of the less profane examples:

* The Dutch phrase for giving too much attention to insignificant details is "ant fucking".

* Afrikaans: "Jou mammie naai vir bakstene om jou sissie se hoerhuis te bou Vieslik!" your mother engages in prostitution in order to raise funds for the building materials necessary to construct a brothel from which your sister will operate.

* German: "backpfeifengesicht" – a face in need of slapping

* Finnish: "Kyrpä otsassa" – a vulgar way to say you're incredibly annoyed. It means that you have a dick in your forehead (should be visualized as hanging forward, rather than actually in your forehead, for some reason).

* Finnish: "pilkunnussija" – a comma fucker; someone who corrects little or meaningless things.

* Spanish: "Está tratando de cagar mas alto de lo que le da el culo" – He's trying to shit higher than his ass can reach.

What are your favorite culturally untranslateable phrases?

(Image: Okay, so it's funny., a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from andrewbain's photostream)

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