This would be great if someone went back to that Publix, saw the woman, and said, “Hey! You’re the sausage that insulted that woman for speaking Spanish! You’re famous now - you’re on the Internet!” 
By far the best ethnic insult I have seen is the Czech “I’ll burn down your fish pond.”
No, I have no idea why it’s bad, but I know it is.
That would be Do other languages have obscenities like those of English?.
Man, I gotta learn Spanish; apparently I’ve forgotten most of what I picked up as a boy in Texas. Sorry about the sausage woman, but I’d say she’s more to be pitied than censured.
She’s half-Spanish. I never knew about all this leche business, though. I hope I won’t be asking for trouble when I go to Spain next and ask for un vaso de leche.
You should be ok, but watch the inflection. If you say “leche” to someone with the same tone or inflection that you would say “asshole”, they’re gonna know.
KnowedOut and JeffB, the insults to which you refer are not Spanish, but Catalan. (Mecagum en les cinq llagues de Crist! and Mecagum Deu, en la creu, en el fuster que la feu, i en el fill de puta que va plantar el pi!)
Then you’ll be there for North Florida Dope, right, this Saturday?
I won’t make it, I’m afraid. Damn, I was hoping you could give us a lecture on Ideal Cursing in Spanish for All Social Occasions.
Sadly, and I do mean sadly, this weekend I’ll be lugging several thousand pounds of furniture and boxes from a moving truck into the new and improved Bayonet Fortress of Not Quite Solitude.
And as for those Spanish cursing lessons, who you really want is my sister, she of the Hot Latin Temper. And having just returned from Cuba she has some gems that were even new to ME.
I should add that, while not disputing the Catalan origin of this poetic masterpiece, during the Franco years Catalan was outlawed in Spain, so when I originally heard this curse, with an addition or two, it was in Spanish.
Well *bayonet1976, I may not be able to marry your sister, as she’s already taken, but please tell her that she’s my hero. You weren’t even talking to the nosy bitch, what the hell does she care what language you’re speaking? Nobody should get away with behavior like that. She deserved what she got.
**bayonet1976, ** when you get the chance, I would sooooo love a thread on colorful curses in foreign languages (with translations, of course, so as not to piss off the mods). Maybe your sister will contribute? (In the interest of international understanding, of course!) I’ll try and collect some in Russian from a co-worker, and from a bunch of Russian-speaking friends and acquaintances I will see later tonight. I speak both languages, but I’m not a native speaker of either, and cursing and other slang have always been my weak spots.
Besides, it’s been pretty crappy at my job lately too (yay Homeland Security!), so I’m feeling the need for some new and zingy vocab in this department. Anyone else who wants to contribute, of course, go right ahead! The more creative and colorful, the better.
Oh, and that crazy woman was completely out of line. Although, I must say, one of my favorite hobbies is eavesdropping on people who think nobody understands them, because of course nobody in major U.S. metro areas speaks a foreign language. Hmmmm, maybe I’ll start a thread like that…
A while back some jackass overheard some folks speaking in a language obviously not English, and then said jackass turned to me and asked, “Why don’t they go back where they come from?” Apparently he thought I’d have the same feeling. Bayonet, I wish you and the fool who intruded on y’all had been there for me to tell the jackass that I came from Germany.
FYI, the correct response to “Why don’t you go back where you came from?” is “Why don’t you crawl up your own ass and do the same?”
Regards,
Shodan
Nah, I liked the Farsi one. Guz bi rishit: “May a fart be on your beard.” Darn shame that JeffB’s link doesn’t include the Signorino illustration, but you can see it in whatever book reprinted the column (Return of the Straight Dope?).
Now, as far as being overheard and understood when you’re talking something other than English…
I read this on The Smoking Gun. Apparently it’s some kind of revelation that JFK got it on with an intern…well, for what it’s worth, TSG posted a transcript of an interview with a woman who knew a lot about goings-on in the Kennedy White House. She told of an incident in which a friend of Jackie’s was visiting from Paris. Jackie was showing him around the White House, and, when they encountered this young woman, said, in French, “This is the girl who supposedly is sleeping with my husband.”
According to this source, the guest was taken aback by this, and the source herself said, “No matter how little French you know, and I know this young lady knew some, I certainly would recognize a few words like ‘sleep’ and ‘girl’ and ‘my husband’!” The source seemed to take it for granted that Mrs. Kennedy did not want the intern to know what she’d said.
Meanwhile, I’m sitting there yelling, “You moron! She was being catty! She wanted the intern to know she was being talked about; it was meant to be an insult, not some kind of secret code!”
Someone got bent about you speaking Spanish in Orlando?!
Funny how two people can react so differently to the same things. Here, a growing hispanic population. I was thinking about taking some Spanish lessons. Not that I need them, just for something fun to do. What a bitch.
Nope, we’re not going there.
Lynn
May your ears turn into arseholes and shit on your shoulders
OK, we’re not going to have a thread on colorful curses in English, either.
Lynn