Do other languages have vulgarities and obscenities that are used in conversation as they are in English? My husband worked in his youth with Italian-speaking laborers and says the worst he ever heard them say in Italian was “fangooloo.” (He says that, contrary to popular impression, this means only “make a tail,” in other words, “show me your back,” or “go away.”
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Honestly, Sally, were you raised in a convent? English obscenities are a pale shadow of the invective used in other languages. The F-word is the least of it. If there’s a language that doesn’t have an equivalent, I’ve yet to hear about it. Poles have pierdolic, the French foutre (from the Latin futuere), Soviet Georgians secems . . . you get the idea.
Vaffanculo is merely the best known of a rich tradition of Italian oaths and imprecations, although the consensus is that Spanish is the champ in this department. Herewith a few of the more printable international classics, culled from the pages of Maledicta: The International Journal of Verbal Aggression, published by Reinhold Aman:
Mabial agpi-agpi ke mabial nganswang, “[You have] very short breasts like the breasts of a porcupine,” Dinga (spoken in Zaire). Or: Dem inear-inear, “[You have a] greatly lined and wrinkled belly.”
My grandfather once told me I could tell the temperature outside by counting cricket chirps, but I’ve forgotten the formula. Do you know? –George Dailey, Denton, Texas
