Quotulatiousness

December 4, 2010

Insults in other languages that don’t translate well

Filed under: Humour — Tags: — Nicholas @ 11:30

A fascinating thread on AskReddit asks “What are your favourite culturally untranslatable phrases?”

Language warning, so I’ve put it below the fold.

imstuckonatrain: I really like this Greek/cypriot phrase which basically means you’re really overcomplicating something:

Εκαμεs τον μουτσιον επιστήμη

Translated: You made masturbation a science

cake_a_too: In French we say “You’re sodomizing flies”.

lilgreenrosetta: The Dutch phrase for giving too much attention to insignificant details is “ant fucking”. I guess the French have us beat on that one.

Kasyx: Personally, I’m a huge fan of the derogatory Afrikaans term for South African English-speakers:

soutpiel

Which translates to “Saltcock”, implying that they have one leg in England, one leg in South Africa, and their dick is dangling in the ocean.

ricoza: Piele vleg – braiding penises : to engage in male bonding

das_hansl: Funny, I’m dutch and I understood it without translation.

LexMortis: That’s because Afrikaans is Loldutch.

TastyAnimal: Jou mammie naai vir bakstene om jou sissie se hoerhuis te bou.

Dunno if the spelling is correct, but apparently it’s an insult.

Oh, and bedsuavekid, have an “opstoot”.

bedsuavekid: Oh, that one’s glorious! Opstoot vir jou ook! Vieslik!

EDIT: oh, and for the rest of you, a rough translation would be, 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.

TastyAnimal: That is a hell of an eloquent translation.

A more brash one would be ‘your mother shags for bricks to build your sisters whorehouse’.

EDIT: Fantastic. The most upvotes I ever get is for translating Afrikaans swearing. Eish.

H/T to BoingBoing.

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