Colibrí’s and CBEscapee’s back and forth just serves to point out that even while using the same language, there are regional and cultural differences.
Personally, being from Puerto Rico, I grew up with “Vete p’al carajo.”. Well, not directed at me, but as the main form of “Go f*ck yourself!”. The phrase “No (me) jodas” or other variants were slightly less vulgar.
Use of just “¡Joder!” was noted only if the speaker was from Spain proper, or to tease Spanish nationals.
Similarly, anyone using the phrase “güey” was either a pure Mexican, or someone making fun of Mexican slang.
And CBEscapee, cabrón as “cuckold” IS one of the accepted definitions by the main dictionary (www.rae.es). Granted, they ALSO include the Mexican meaning. Happy?
I’m of the belief one can have a good idea of the country or region someone is by the curse words they use.
Yeah. In Colombia, chucha means sweat or body odor. Here in Panama, it means pussy.
Once a Colombian woman of my acquaintance came back from the field all covered in sweat. She sniffed her armpit, and said Creo que tenga chucha. (I think I might have BO.)
She smacked me when I began to laugh and she realized what she had said in Panamanian slang.
I would say that ‘flikker op’ has everything to do with falling and going away, and nothing with being gay. It follows the pattern that a lot of phrasal verbs meaning to fall adhere to: preceded by ‘om’ (or ‘omver’) they mean to fall over, preceded by ‘op’ they mean to get lost, to go away, etc. Take for instance:
All the ‘op’ ones mean to go away, all the ‘om’ ones mean to fall over.
In addition to these verbs that can be used to actually tell people to go away in no uncertain terms, there are also ways of expressing, let’s say, disagreement and a refusal to continue any further conversation without explicitly telling some one to go away (much like ‘go fuck yourself’ may imply but does not necessitate that the person should go away before they fuck themselves). For instance, there is ‘val dood’ (fall dead, ie die). More common, I think, (actually the first thing that came to mind when I saw the thread title) is to wish disease on someone: krijg de tyfus, krijg de tering, krijg de pest, krijg de pokken, (in order: get typhus, tb, the plague, pox) and also (more jocularly) krijg de hik (get hiccups).
Well then friend, why don’t you tell me in what parts of México it is still used to denote “cuckold” ?
Cabrón is a very widely used word in México. You will here it untold times everyday. It has a multitude od different uses. It is a noun, an adjective and has a verb form “encabronarse”
There is a popular TV program here called "“está cañon” which is an altered spelling of “está cabrón”. A polite translation might be “its tough” but a more literal translation is “its a bitch”.
“La maestra es una cabrona” (used as a noun in the feminine form). “the teacher is a bitch”.
“nadie quiere andar con ese cabrón, es un hijo de la chingada.” no one wants to hang around with the jerk, he is a real bastard.
*“el examen está muy cabrón” * (used as an adjective) The test is really difficult.
It can also be used as a compliment:
“Es muy cabrón para jugar fútbol.” He is an awesome soccer player.
Or describing a bad situation:
En Juárez, está muy cabrón. " Things are nasty in Juárez"
And there also exists the verb “encabronar” (which does NOT mean “poner los cuernos”) meaning to anger or piss off.
“Algunos pendejos en este foro me encabronan con sus tonterías.”
Just because a word has a certain origen doesn’t mean that it cannot evolve into something entirely different. The word’s original meaning certainly wasn’t “cuckold”. Somewhere along the line someone decided it served that purpose well but that doesn’t mean that is an accepted meaning everywhere. Just as it has its different meanings in México doesn’t mean that it means the same thing in Venezuela.
Er zol vaksn vi a tsibele mit dem kop in drerd - (a favorite of my grandmother) you should grow like an onion, with your head in the ground. It was a nasty curse to her, almost like f you, since it wished death on someone
A kleyn kind zol nokh im heysn - a young child should be named after you (in the Jewish tradition, children are only named after dead people)
There are a lot more colorful ones, but these were the nastiest ones I could remember.
-Wallet-
eta - oh, and schmuck means penis, although nowadays people just use it to mean idiot
Of course I’m not disputing that the word might not have different meanings in different places. I’m not contending that the most common and widespread significance in most places (not just Mexico) might not be idiot, or asshole, or something else; one rarely has occasion to call someone an actual cuckold.
However, as I’ve already pointed out, the word’s origin as an insult certainly was cuckold (the original literal meaning being male goat). In that sense it goes back, as I mentioned, at least to 1611.
From the Diccionario de Argot
Sebastian de Covarrubias en 1611 dijo: del latin caper, animal conocido, simbolo de la lujuria. Y anadio: Llamar a uno cabron en todo tiempo y entre todas las naciones es afrentarle. Vale lo mismo que cornudo, a quien su mujer no le guardar lealtad.
“Sebastion de Covarrubias said in 1611: from Latin caper, a well-known animal, symbol of lechery. And he adds: To call someone a cabron at all times and among all nations is to insult him. It means the same as “horned,” someone whose wife is unfaithful to him.”
Saying that “cabron” doesn’t mean cuckold is like saying “schmuck” doesn’t mean prick. The original meaning may have been forgotten in places, but that basic sense is the reason that word became an insult.
Cukold is not the original meaning of the word. Just because someone decided it fits the description of a cornudo does not mean that is a universally accepted defintion. We use the word “guey” which is a horned animal with no balls.
What, then, is the original insulting meaning of the word? (The original literal meaning is male goat.) Please provide a cite earlier than 1611.
It’s as close to a universally accepted definition as you’re going to get. You can’t get more authoritative than the Diccionario de la Lengua Espanola published by the Spanish Royal Academy (Real Academia Espanola), which includes this definition:
*cabrón, na. (Del aum. de cabra). adj. vulg. Se dice del hombre al que su mujer es infiel, y en especial si lo consiente. U. t. c. s. *
“Said of a man whose wife is unfaithful, especially if he is aware of it.”
I’ve already provided cites from three other authoritative dictionaries, and there are dozens of other sources I could cite. There’s really no question that this is a general meaning of the word in the Spanish language.
So what? That has nothing to do with whether cabron also means cuckold.
Va te faire foutre is French-French; out this way we say va chier (go shit) or mange d’la marde (eat shit). If you just want the person to leave you the fuck alone, there’s crisse-moi patience literally “Christ me patience,” where crisser is an all-purpose verb, so the sense is basically “leave me in peace,” except swearing.
Variants on va te faire foutre include va te faire enculer (go get ass-fucked) and the somewhat euphemistic va te faire voir (go get “seen to”).
CBEscapee, of course the meaning of the word changes. And that it varies with region. Go to the RAE dictionary website. See that it includes definitions that they consider “universal”, and regional meanings from places like Cuba and México.
Even in Puerto Rico, where we don’t always use it to mean cuckold, we know one of its meanings IS cuckold.
Simple, so cabrón is not used the same way in your region as it is used in others. Like I said, curse words vary per region.
And actually, the RAE website, besides being pretty much authoritative, IS pretty good about giving regional definitions for a given word.
Colibri said that calling someone cabrón in Spanish is a grave insult because it denotes cuckold. My point is, and I could care less what the word means in other countries, that it is NOT used in that sense in México. It has many meanings here. I have explained some. None mean cuckold. He insists that it is used in México to call someone a cuckold. He is mistaken. Call someone a cabrón here can be offensive or not. Depends on the context. But it is a mild perjorative and far from fighting words.
It is in many places. This is a typical description of the use of the word:
What I am saying is that the basic sense in Spanish is cuckold, just as the basic sense of schmuck in Yiddish is prick. I’ve provided plenty of evidence for that. The word can of course be used in other senses, but this is the origin of its use as an insult. I’m aware that it has other uses. An example from English is “bastard,” which usually indicates a disagreeable person, but can also be used in a friendly fashion or to describe a hard job. It’s origin as an insult, however, goes back to its meaning of an illegitimacy.
I never said that. What I said was:
I would be surprised if all Mexicans were so completely unaware of the “cuckold” sense of the word as you claim.
I guess the defining condition is how socially significant cuckoldry is in the minds of Mexicans.
I mean here in Canada the word is rare and unimportant. While marital fidelity probably doesnt vary much country to country, the concept of a man supplanted by his wifes lover is dealt with adequately by other terms in Canada and cuckold is relatively unheard.
Ultimately a words meaning is what its used for. And it seems that, given the examples by the 60 year old resident, cabrón isnt used that way in Mexico. The use in television pretty much shows that nation wide, cabrón isnt preloaded with the connotations you say. Dictionaries be damned. They tend to be slow up the uptake anyway.
If it isn’t significant for Mexicans, they’re very different from other Latin Americans.
Of course the word “cuckold” is almost never used as an insult in the US either. It’s almost archaic. However, the concept of infidelity is still insulting.
Again, I’m not disputing the contention that it’s not generally used in that sense in Mexico. I’m saying that that’s the original and basic source of the insult. Similarly, “scumbag” and “it sucks” are freely tossed around on US television these days with little recognition of their much more offensive original or earlier connotations. That doesn’t mean that those connotations don’t exist.
Here’s the problem. It isn’t “not generally used in that sense”. It isn’t used in that sense, period. We have our own slang to deal with that situation which I have already pointed out or use the term cornudo. Why you are having such a hard time accepting that is puzzling.
In Argentina, the word pendejo means a young person. But that is not what the word means in México. Many of us know that fact because we are well traveled and/or well read but the large majority of the people here are completely unaware of that. If I would address a joven as pendejo here it would be taken as an insult by one and all, regardless of its meaning in Buenos Aires. It simply does not mean young man to us any more than cabrón means cornudo.
I’ve said any number of times that I am not disputing that the word is used in that sense in Mexico. You, on they other hand, seem to be claiming that all Mexicans are completely unaware of that sense of the word, even though virtually any Spanish dictionary will give that as one of the meanings. Why you insist on this is puzzling. Mexicans must have a pretty tough time if they commonly use this word when they are travelling elsewhere in Latin America.
A dictionary will tell you that pendejo means “pubic hair.” It has plenty of other meanings, including stupid, cowardly, or clumsy. Would no Argentineans be aware of the pubic hair connection, even if the word is not used in that sense there?
I never said none of us are aware of the way the word is used in Spain or elsewhere. Do you think none of us have visited Spain? Have ever read Spanish literature? Or seen a Spanish movie? You are being ridiculous. I have said throughout this thread that we do NOT use it in that manner. To us it does not hold that meaning. Not that elsewhere it can have that definition. So when a Mexican calls someone a cabrón they will not be calling them a cornudo. You have repeatedly claimed otherwise. First you said I was mistaken and then in another post, OK well maybe in certain parts (which obviously you couldn’t name) of México that is true and then in a later post it isn’t “generally” used.
I don’t need a dictionary to tell me what the original meaning of pendejo is. I´m sure there are argentinos that don’t either. But that word is rarely if ever used here except in its slang form. The most common term for pubic hair is vello púbico. Not long ago a young friend of the family was celebrating his birthday. Some friends from Argentina called to felicitate him. “David! eres todavia un pendejo!” which caused great laughter among us here in Guadalajara. That sentence was repeated with good humor all evening.
This all started when you took offense when I pointed out that slang varies between countries and that cabrón does not mean cornudo here. I find it strange that a foreigner whose speaks Spanish as a second language insists on lecturing me the meanings of words in the Méxican dialect.
And generally we find traveling in other parts of the world quite easy. We aren’t in the habit of throwing insults at others whether they deserve it or not so your or my definition of slang insults isn’t much of a problem.
You’re right, Chefguy. The common equivalent for GFY is “đụ má mày” lit. fuck your mother, or shortened as “đụ má”, though the latter is more exclamatory, i.e. “Fuck!” They do vaguely sound like “du mami” and “du ma”.
The phrase *“địt mẹ mày” *is not commonly used and “địt” is more of a censored form of “đụ”, kind of like shoot for shit or (sorta) frak for fuck in English, and jolin for joder in Spanish.
Nor in Spain, where the main “literal” meaning of cabrón is a man who pimps out his own women (mother, wife, sisters, daughters). Generally when someone calls someone else cabrón they don’t mean to call him a family pimp, same as when someone calls someone else a motherfucker in English they don’t generally mean that he has sex with his own mother. In that way, the two terms are similar, and also in the way that if you call someone those things literally you’re in risk of losing an eye.
A cornudo is being cuckolded and may know it or not; a cabrón is actually ordering his wife to put out for other men. Big difference.
Happy?