# "Busting balls"--translations in Hebrew, Spanish, (others)? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 25, 2016, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/busting-balls-translations-in-hebrew-spanish-others/760866 "2016-07-25T17:24:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2016, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/busting-balls-translations-in-hebrew-spanish-others/760866/1 "2016-07-25T17:24:26Z")
To bust balls is a slang, vulgar phrase that can have two uses: overly, obnoxiously, insistently complaining, importuning, or annoying somebody about something, or, as a teasing version of that. _Locus classicus:_ _Goodfellas_ Mobster 1 to Mobster 2: You used to be a great shoe shine boy. Mobster 2: Motherfucker! Mobster 1: Hey, calm down, I’m just busting your balls here. Mobster 2: OK Mobster 1: Now go get your fucking shine box. Mobster 2: (_Beats Mobster 1 to near-death, some time later stabs him._) An Israeli friend suggested “lezayen basechel” which sounds like “fuck with [someone’s] head.” Does that sound right? And Spanish has the word-for-word equivalent “rompe cojones?” ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2016, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/busting-balls-translations-in-hebrew-spanish-others/760866/2 "2016-07-25T17:35:01Z")
And, as usual (I have to add this to similar OPs) dollars to donuts Brits have some version unique to them. I doubt dollars to donuts is often used in conversation of Brits and their Anglo brethren. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2016, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/busting-balls-translations-in-hebrew-spanish-others/760866/3 "2016-07-25T18:10:10Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > To bust balls is a slang, vulgar phrase that can have two uses: overly, obnoxiously, insistently complaining, importuning, or annoying somebody about something, or, as a teasing version of that. > > _Locus classicus:_ _Goodfellas_ > Mobster 1 to Mobster 2: You used to be a great shoe shine boy. > Mobster 2: Motherfucker! > Mobster 1: Hey, calm down, I’m just busting your balls here. > Mobster 2: OK > Mobster 1: Now go get your fucking shine box. > Mobster 2: (_Beats Mobster 1 to near-death, some time later stabs him._) > > An Israeli friend suggested “lezayen basechel” which sounds like “fuck with [someone’s] head.” > > Does that sound right? And Spanish has the word-for-word equivalent “rompe cojones?” _Rompehuevos_. Single word. It’s got both the meaning of “fucking with one’s head in a way that’s really not funny” and that of being a very agressive, bossy person (often but nor always a woman). _Paco es un rompehuevos_: Paco’s sense of humor is a pain in the ass, it’s very agressive and he’s the only one who finds his jokes funny. _Mi jefe es un rompehuevos_: my boss is a slavedriver. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2016, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/busting-balls-translations-in-hebrew-spanish-others/760866/4 "2016-07-25T18:15:57Z")
A milder version is _tocahuevos_, _tocapelotas_ or _tocacojones_, which do have the separate form and can be used in the first person when separate: _oh vamos, sólo estoy tocándote un poco los huevos_ - awww, I’m just busting your balls a little. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2016, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/busting-balls-translations-in-hebrew-spanish-others/760866/5 "2016-07-25T19:07:24Z")
**Nava** , thank you so much. I could sit around and talk to you all day about stuff like this. Every day at my favorite coffee hangout I ask (not bust balls :)) a Puerto Rican friend similar questions; I then compare them with a Mexican cook here, but whose English is not fluent by any means, so he misses any nuance. To that Israeli in OP, who didn’t know the English, I suggested “being a nudnik exponentiated.” Israelis by and large know less Yiddish vocabulary than a random New York African American, but nudnick (pest) is one of them. Your answer on ball busters reminds me of when I asked for Spanish for, simply, “he’s an asshole.” Obviously many nuances of assholery exist in every culture, cross-checked with Spanish region. About OP phrase and Yiddish, since I brought up that language, and since you mention women as being more likely for a version of it, a false-friend is in Yiddish–“She’s a real _balebustah_”–a compliment meaning “she knows how to run a household” (cleanliness, order, kids healthy and well-brought up.) For years I always heard this as saying she was a real ball buster, and wondering why it was said with evident approval. NB: this is from the small Yiddish vocabulary of 20 words and expressions (?) still known and used, broadly speaking, by Americans descendants of mother-tongue Yiddish-speakers). Unlike nudnick, however, it is less common in urban English and deserves typographic distinction in italics. (I see here there is a Wiki entry on it, which I cite here sight unseen (heh): [Balabusta - Wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balabusta) ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2016, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/busting-balls-translations-in-hebrew-spanish-others/760866/6 "2016-07-25T19:19:26Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > An Israeli friend suggested “lezayen basechel” which sounds like “fuck with [someone’s] head.” I’m not sure. Is there crime between Israelis in Israel? Has one citizen ever ventilated another like Tommy DeVito did to Spider? ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2016, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/busting-balls-translations-in-hebrew-spanish-others/760866/7 "2016-07-25T19:34:01Z")
> [@Count\_Blucher](#): > > I’m not sure. Is there crime between Israelis in Israel? Has one citizen ever ventilated another like Tommy DeVito did to Spider? I’m assuming you’re serious, but you can’t be serious… ---
**Author:** ![Banksiaman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banksiaman/32/3334_2.png) [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2016, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/busting-balls-translations-in-hebrew-spanish-others/760866/8 "2016-07-25T22:31:49Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > And, as usual (I have to add this to similar OPs) dollars to donuts Brits have some version unique to them. > > I doubt dollars to donuts is often used in conversation of Brits and their Anglo brethren. Your dollars are safe in Australia, Mr Bloom. After confusing it with a knee to the groin, we might call it ‘sledging’, particularly in a sport context, while older Australians might dust off the almost extinct ‘chayacking’. Chayacking (or a host of other spellings) is less about verbal abuse, involves more humour and disruptive behaviour and having a go at someone, but so that any physical response is seen as the other person’s over-reaction. The only honourable defence against chayacking is to give as good as you get. Often a sign (and test) of close friendship. ---
**Author:** ![CC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f1d935/32.png) [@CC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CC)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2016, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/busting-balls-translations-in-hebrew-spanish-others/760866/9 "2016-07-26T22:44:24Z")
In Italian, there’s a phrase (spelled mainly phonetically here) _No me rompio lo coglioni_, meaning Don’t break my balls. Pretty direct.