Back in the 80s, a book was passed around the office that listed Japanese swear words and insults. Their take on insults was very creative and funny. Naturally, we all used them on each other, until management finally stepped in to put a stop to it. I've looked for the book since, but cannot find it.
On an unrelated note, when I was working on the C++ compiler back then, Zortech C++ had the option of presenting error messages in Japanese. There weren't many obvious Japanese translations for technical terms. C++ "destructors" in Japanese turned into "death tractors".
Sometimes I still get caught referring to destructors as death tractors.
The normal Japanese word for a programming destructor is still just English-borrowed "desutorakuta," so the legacy of the death tractor lives on.
Here's a very similar online conversation which you were a part of on the D forums/newsgroup, about a D book being published in Japan. [1] That's page 2 where it's first mentioned, and your joyous reaction is on page 3.
Seems like at the time since Google Translate didn't know the term in its programming context it tried its best and gave back "death tractor" when trying to take "desutorakuta" back to English. Today though it gets it right (see "table of contents" tab in this link) [2].
That thread so matches what you're describing here, I wonder if it's the actual source?
Japanese profanity is difficult to translate literally. For example, there are verbs that encode grades of respect ("to eat" can be any of meshiagaru, taberu, kuu) plus verb conjugations that express contempt (yaru > yagare), so you end up with phrases like kuiyagare that on a literal level mean "eat" but would need to be translated "Fucking eat!".
In the other direction, you can't map English cursing word by word either. "Asshole" may be ketsu no ana, but the listener would hear that as "buttocks opening", not a personal insult. Which is not to say there aren't scatological insults in Japanese, kusottare (lit. shit-dripper) being a personal favorite.
In Melbourne, Australia we sometimes refer to them as "Toorak Tractors" as Toorak is considered a suburb of Melbourne mostly populated with people that have more money than brains.
Following the link for “wankpuffin” (beautiful word, btw), apparently the one-syllable followed by two-syllable construction is a distinct pattern, called a “shitgibbon” (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/shitgibbon)
Noun
shitgibbon (plural shitgibbons)
2. (linguistics) A type of antibacchic compound word used as an insult, consisting of a single-syllable expletive, followed by an absurd or innocuous two-syllable noun as a trochee.
Also,
> a special tank you enter to jerk off.
feels rather insulting to me. It’s not exactly something I would want to be associated with.
The shitgibbon definition is surprisingly specific about the metric composition of the pejorative compound, indicating that it must be antibacchic, which means two stressed syllables followed by an unstressed. So "assmonkey" and "twatwaffle" fit the bill, but common forms such as "asshat" and "dickwad" do not.
Trumpet seems to be the only musical instrument that's used as a pejorative. Why not "assclarinet" or "drumtwat"? Is it because the trumpet kinda sounds like a fart [full disclosure: trumpet player], and if so why not trombone or tuba, which sound much more like farts to my ear. "Ass-tuba".
On a related note, there was a short-lived punk band in the 1980s called the Butt Trumpets.
I feel like this captures only the novice redditor troll. Those who advance to the next level don't merely use "shitlord" or "assclown" but instead combine the two for increased effect. Call is a second order compound pejorative, e.g.:
That's the kind of comment I'd expect of some shitlord assclown who doesn't know where their opinion stops and reality begins. Get out of your mom's basement and maybe you'll upgrade your personality to piss stain
I don't speak from experience on levelling this sort of insult though so I may not have got it quite right. I welcome both constructive & unconstructive criticism of my technique.
If you're really good friends with a somewhat crude Australian, he might call you a cunt. It's a term of endearment.
But cunt might also be used as a serious insult.
Entirely depends on context.
There's also a creative arabic language insult, or variation on it, that can be translated as "my dick in your religion" or "a thousand dicks in your religion"
Eastern Europeans have some of the best insults, too. Hungarian has "A horse's dick in your ass." (Lófasz a seggedbe.)
I believe it is the Serbs who use "May the Pope fuck your 18th-great-grandmother." (How the Pope shall choose which one of the insultee's 524,288 candidate ancestors, that's not clear.)
The famous "Go fuck yourself" directed at the Russian warship by the Ukrainians translates, literally, even better: иди нахуй (idi nahui) = "go to dick".
> How the Pope shall choose which one of the insultee's [...] 18th-great-grandmother
Interesting question, and I could immediately propose:
-- that the subject ancestor availability on earth is considered a possibility, as they may be implicitly supposed to procreate at first biological occasion;
-- that the identity of said ancestor must crawl the female side of the chain, as "mater semper certa, pater numquam", especially supposedly in the case of the insultee.
I had read somewhere that the altered line was intended to be read "no-talent-ass clown", but Herman read it as "no-talent ass-clown", and a fantastic insult was born. That part could be apocryphal though.
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On an unrelated note, when I was working on the C++ compiler back then, Zortech C++ had the option of presenting error messages in Japanese. There weren't many obvious Japanese translations for technical terms. C++ "destructors" in Japanese turned into "death tractors".
Sometimes I still get caught referring to destructors as death tractors.
Here's a very similar online conversation which you were a part of on the D forums/newsgroup, about a D book being published in Japan. [1] That's page 2 where it's first mentioned, and your joyous reaction is on page 3.
Seems like at the time since Google Translate didn't know the term in its programming context it tried its best and gave back "death tractor" when trying to take "desutorakuta" back to English. Today though it gets it right (see "table of contents" tab in this link) [2].
That thread so matches what you're describing here, I wonder if it's the actual source?
[1] https://forum.dlang.org/thread/cpm7i4$ub1$1@digitaldaemon.co... [2] https://gihyo-jp.translate.goog/book/2005/4-7741-2208-4/?_x_...
But "death tractors" just never gets old.
In the other direction, you can't map English cursing word by word either. "Asshole" may be ketsu no ana, but the listener would hear that as "buttocks opening", not a personal insult. Which is not to say there aren't scatological insults in Japanese, kusottare (lit. shit-dripper) being a personal favorite.
More on the topic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_profanity
Deleted Comment
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger%27s_Profanisaurus
Noun shitgibbon (plural shitgibbons)
2. (linguistics) A type of antibacchic compound word used as an insult, consisting of a single-syllable expletive, followed by an absurd or innocuous two-syllable noun as a trochee.
Also,
> a special tank you enter to jerk off.
feels rather insulting to me. It’s not exactly something I would want to be associated with.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/shitgibbon
[^] --> Category:Shitgibbons_by_language
[v] --> Category:German_shitgibbons
[v] --> https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Arschgeige
“assviolin”
On a related note, there was a short-lived punk band in the 1980s called the Butt Trumpets.
That's the kind of comment I'd expect of some shitlord assclown who doesn't know where their opinion stops and reality begins. Get out of your mom's basement and maybe you'll upgrade your personality to piss stain
I don't speak from experience on levelling this sort of insult though so I may not have got it quite right. I welcome both constructive & unconstructive criticism of my technique.
Deleted Comment
But cunt might also be used as a serious insult.
Entirely depends on context.
There's also a creative arabic language insult, or variation on it, that can be translated as "my dick in your religion" or "a thousand dicks in your religion"
I believe it is the Serbs who use "May the Pope fuck your 18th-great-grandmother." (How the Pope shall choose which one of the insultee's 524,288 candidate ancestors, that's not clear.)
The famous "Go fuck yourself" directed at the Russian warship by the Ukrainians translates, literally, even better: иди нахуй (idi nahui) = "go to dick".
You make a lot of assumptions about some people's family trees. What if the 17th grandmother is also your 16th grandmother on the other side?
Eg, small village, grandmother has 6 daughters, they have 6 daughters, out of the 36 daughters 20 could be lineage grandmothers.
In fact, the further back you go, the greater chance of overlap.
(Note: growing up in a small town has no bearing on me thinking of this! None!)
the flat part is very important and makes it even more aggressive.
literally, kos chapat
the chapat is the same farsi original root word as you'd find in urdu and hindi for a chapati (the flat bread) or anything else that is flat.
Or “your asshole is a fountain” is even better.
Interesting question, and I could immediately propose:
-- that the subject ancestor availability on earth is considered a possibility, as they may be implicitly supposed to procreate at first biological occasion;
-- that the identity of said ancestor must crawl the female side of the chain, as "mater semper certa, pater numquam", especially supposedly in the case of the insultee.
(This implies that you are not mates, and may in fact be about to start having a not-good night)
Deleted Comment
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=F...
Also, the compound assclown was coined by Office Space: https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2467219/how-office-space-co...
I had read somewhere that the altered line was intended to be read "no-talent-ass clown", but Herman read it as "no-talent ass-clown", and a fantastic insult was born. That part could be apocryphal though.