“Concha” (seashell; in some places = pussy) is OK in Panama. Here one of the most frequent words for pussy is “chucha” (the basis for the common euphemism “Chuleta!”). However in Colombia this means “armpit sweat” or “body odor.” Once a female Colombian friend came back from a walk all sweaty, sniffed her armpit, and said “Creo que tengo chucha.” I raised my eyebrow and she smacked me when she realized what she had said in Panamanian. 
Yup. Concha to me is nothing, but I do know what it means elsewhere. There was a Peruvian restaurant here named “Las conchitas calientes”. I never went, sorry, I’m not going to a restaurant with that name…
Also, everyone else at work doesn’t like when I said coño, but they don’t realize that the Chilean insult is as bad.
Similarly “Carajo!” (prick) is a common and comparatively mild swear word compared to the English equivalent (although like chucha it has a euphemism: “Ajo!” (green pepper)).
Does “Carajo” mean prick?, I was told (but I’m not sure I believe it) that the Carajo was a ship’s lookout.
Never heard the “prick” meaning.
I’ve heard that “Chinga tu madre” is offensive. It might be more Cuban than Mexican in origin though.
You either misunderstood the word, or it was along the lines of Cheech telling Chong that “pendejo” means “friend.”
The only meanings any of my dictionaries give for it is “prick, dick (vulgar)” or expletives (damn, shit, bloody, etc.)
Unless maybe you were on The Good Ship Venus.
[QUOTE=Ranger Jeff]
I’ve heard that “Chinga tu madre” is offensive. It might be more Cuban than Mexican in origin though.
[/QUOTE]
“Chinga tu madre” (fuck your mother) may get you killed almost anywhere. However, “chingar” for “to fuck” is especially characteristic of Mexico and Central America. Elsewhere it is often “joder.” “Coger” (literally, “to catch”) varies; some places it means “to fuck,” elsewhere it’s OK.
Colibrí, you just made me look at the entry for carajo in the dictionary. 
It definitely have most of the uses, all various forms of insults. And at the beginning it says “of uncertain origins”… 
Oh, this is awesome!! I got him to say, “Joder!” just now, and it was just way more suave. (you must understand that he is a six-and-a-half-foot Irish-American biker type.)
Thank you all!!
I can’t find a cite, but apparently calling someone “Butthurt” in Panama will get you a knife in the ribs.
“Chingar”, with its different conjugations, is one of the most versatile words in the lexicon of Mexican Spanish. 
This is off on a tangent, but it just dawned on me. There is a pastry called a concha in Mexico. There is also a children’s variety show in Monterrey which features a popular character dancing around dressed as this pastry and singing “Soy una concha! Soy una concha!” I can’t help but wonder at the reaction of people from a region where “concha” has a vulgar meaning.
Mamon = cocksucker
My Wife calls me comen mierda, which is eater of shit or shit eater.
Hey, it’s not even my dialect, but I laughed at the idea of a restaurant (from a region where it DOES mean something) using that word as their name. And it was supposed to be a family restaurant!
Comemierda is used to call snobby superficial people.
A better idiom is “comen mierda y no llegan a peo”, they eat too much shit and don’t amount to a fart.
No, in Spanish it’s both an impolite name for a woman’s bits and a curseword, but you don’t use it to insult someone. I have a coño and I’ve been known to exclaim ¡COOooooooOOOOOooooOOOO ÑO! la ostia, puta, caBRÓN after a close encounter with a hammer, but I’d never call someone a coño. Profane yes, my grandma-who-was-a-lady would never have used such a word. An insult, no. Oh, and in Spain coña is unbelievably good luck, something which can get extremely confusing.
Sending someone al coño tu madre is extremely impolite, but I don’t think they do it in Mexico - their version is the already-mentioned chinga tu madre.
Or as mentioned above, in Argentina, Chile and Uruguay (at least), you send them to the “concha” of their mothers
My high school Spanish teacher (in an informal session) taught us the minced oath “Chinelas!” which, according to her, meant “fuzzy bathroom slippers”
“Pantuflas!, Chinelas!, Chancletas!”!
Watch your mouth young man!
I learned my spanish cursing from Puerto Ricans, mostly*, and they told me it meant “hell”. Every time I use it with that intended meaning (as in “go to hell”), it seems to be understood as I intended.
*to the immense shock of my Puerto Rican sister-in-law.
I always thought Pitufos sounded like it might be obscene.
I’m a generation out of date, I’m sure, but Mexicans are more apt to use insults than curses. Pelon is a common one, they love to pick a physical characteristic and make fun of it, pelon being baldy, orejon big ears, narizon nose, when I had a big black beard my Mexican friends called me chongo, ape, which is also their equivalent of the n word. Then a lot of potent Mexican curses are agricultural in origin, gue or guevon being the most potent and most common. Gue is ox, so a guevon is a nutless man, very bad. Cabron, of course, is goat, and is the old european form of cuckold, having another man put the horns on you. Joto is a fascinating word, in my generation it referred to effeminate men rather than gay men generally. Back in the old days on farms and ranches the young men lived in barracks in the country far away from women and it was not considered a terrible thing if you helped a buddy out by having sex with him, so long as you remained manly. Start acting like a girl though and you lost all respect and became el joto. Working class guys say hijo de la puta at the drop of a hat, or hijole, or puta madre. Mamon is cocksucker, mamona is the good kind of cocksucker. Verga is slang for cock, as in mama la verga, or the ultimate sigh of exasperation, a la verga… Fundillo (fundido) is a good word for asshole, it refers to funnel and fundament both, less creative is culo. Rendija is crack and you can just imagine the utility of that word. Panocha is candy corn and very commonly used for vagina. Nalgas are cheeks and a woman with a nice ass is a nalgona, and often has the nickname Nacha. Bruja and ruca are both witch with a strong connotation of bitch. Bezamela is suck my dick. Hemingway used to go on about Spanish being a great language for cursing, but American English is the best, and Irish English a close second. Man, I love to drink and cuss…
I would like to point out–perhaps not even snarkily for some non-American readers–that “the n-word” is “nigger.” Using the euphemism in the current thread is particularly hypocritical.