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• Classic-Fiction

vai à fava (Portuguese) go to the fava bean!

sukse kuuseen (Finnish) ski into a spruce!

ej bekot (Latvian) go mushrooming!

skatertyu droga (Russian) table cloth to the road!

… especially in the Spanish-speaking world:

banarse take a bath!

buscar berros find watercress!

freir bunuelos fry doughnuts!

freir esparragos fry asparagus!

hacer gargaras gargle!

a la goma as far as rubber stretches!

Dumb as bread

The rest of the world is not short of colourful verbal insults. ‘May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpits,’ they say in Arabic; and many other languages compare people to animals when being rude. In French your object of scorn is a chameau (camel) or vache (cow); in Swahili, a punda (zebra); while in Vietnam you call the offender do cho de, literally, you dog birth. Other expressions of abuse have clearly exercised the full imagination of the truly upset:

du bist doch dumm wie Brot (German) you are as dumb as bread

korinttiaivot (Finnish) an insult to describe the old (literally, currant brains)

du kannst mir mal in die Schuhe blasen (Swiss German) kiss my arse (literally, you can blow into my shoes)

du kannst mir gern den Buckel runterrutschen und mit der Zunge bremsen (Austrian German) you can slide down my hunchback using your tongue as a brake

Anger-hair

Now things are in danger of getting seriously out of control:

tener una cara de telefono ocupado (Puerto Rican Spanish) to be angry (literally, to have a face like a busy telephone)

Gesicht wie ein Feuermelder (German) to be so angry that one’s face turns red (literally, a face like a fire alarm)

mencak-mencak (Indonesian) to stamp one’s feet on the ground repeatedly, getting very angry

dohatsu-ten o tsuku (Japanese) to be beside oneself with rage (literally, anger-hair points to heaven)

mouton enragé (French) maddened sheep (said of an angry person who is usually calm)

waśihdaka (Dakota, USA) one who gets angry at everything

False friends

twist (Dutch) quarrel, dispute, altercation, wrangle

batman (Turkish) thrust

pee (Dutch) to be annoyed

hot (Swedish) threat

The blame game

When the blood is boiling things can get increasingly complicated:

togogata (Yamana, Chile) to turn one’s attention and anger from one person to another

fijoo (Mandinka, West Africa) anger at someone other than the one who caused the anger

babit (Malay) to implicate third parties in a dispute

hewula (Tsonga, South Africa) to shout down one who keeps on arguing after the evidence has shown him to be guilty

Macho moment

Pray God, it doesn’t turn physical:

imbang (Malay) reluctant but prepared to fight

makgatlha (Setswana, Botswana) challengers who show their wish to fight by throwing down a handful of earth

dii-konya (Ndebele, Southern Africa) to destroy your own property in anger

lusud (Manobo, Philippines) to go into someone’s house to fight them

parandhu parandhu adikkaradhu (Tamil) to fight by jumping and flying in the air

langola (Mambwe, Zambia) to repeatedly throw a man very hard to the ground

sugun (Malay) seizing the hair or throat to force down your adversary

cisanan (Yamana, Chile) a canoe with an avenger of blood in it coming to exact vengeance

The female is the deadlier …

The Finnish have a wonderful word, knapsu, for anything that’s not male behaviour. Other cultures are quick to notice the gender-specific:

Stutenbeißen (German) the special behaviour of women in a rivalry situation (literally, mare biting)

dzinana (Tsonga, South Africa) to pummel one another with the side of the fists, away from the thumb, as fighting women do)

vongola (Tsonga, South Africa) to expose the buttocks (which is done by women as the ultimate insult when they run out of invective)

agarrar(se) del chongo (Latin American Spanish) to brawl, to fight – applied to women (literally, to grab each other by the bun of the hair)

The flapping of wings

Whatever sex we are, we sometimes can’t resist having the last word:

kulumbana (Tsonga, South Africa) to follow a person who left a meeting