Question about insults/obscenities

Dutch insults often accuse someone of having a certain disease, such as kankerlijer (cancer sufferer). One step further is kankerhoer (cancerous whore). Other “popular” diseases for this purpose are smallpox and consumption. Strangely enough, insulting one’s mother is not common at all in the Netherlands.

Buzzfeed recently posted a short list of insults from around the world. The ones they chose happen to involve a lot of excrement, nether-regions and mothers. There’s some that don’t like “Wearer of a green hat” but that one suggests that a guy’s wife is a whore.

No, that would be “Clone!” :slight_smile:

Dunno about the OP, but I just added it to my Amazon list! Thank you!

Damn, what do you say to someone (or about someone) who’s just been diagnosed with the big C and you ***don’t ***want to be insulting?

The classic me cago en la leche de tu puta madre (I shit in the milk of your whore mother) is a little worse.

I once heard one (American) high school student exclaim to another “Go milk yourself, you fat cow!”. The listener seemed to take it in the spirit in which it was intended.

No, that’s still an insult to the mother–what kind of a woman needs a man “to do right by her,” other than a slutty slut who slutted around before she was married?

The word lijer is old fashioned and only used for these insults, but yes, that is a problem.

One of the nastier lines in that bottom-of-the-barrel TV series came when Al was trying to reassure Peg that he was not fooling around on her, “Why would I go out for milk when I have a cow at home?” Calling a woman a cow in pretty insulting in American English, because cows are stupid, smelly beasts basically good for one thing.

Back in 2008, during the Democratic Primary battle between Barack Obama & Hillary Clinton, there was a minor flap because someone in the Obama camp had called Hillary a bitch.

Shortly afterward, she entered a meeting of her campaign staff, greeted by the tune of Elton Johns’ “The Bitch is Back”. With some shocked, but mostly lots of laughter from the staff, and even Hillary herself.

There was even suggestions to do this at the next big public rally she was to appear at – maybe even fly in Elton to play – but the idea was killed by older staffers, because it would likely offend some voters (especially females) and would focus attention on her personality rather than her issues/experience.

No, one whose father is not married to the mother and may not have acknowledged the child. He also may have, history is full of recognized bastards from royal and high households.

I’d say the one about pimping one’s women (wife, daughters, sisters) is worse.