We all know the feeling, when you want to insult a friend, but just don’t quite have the means to do so, or when you’re looking for a particularly creative insult but one just won’t come, and you stand there for a couple seconds looking dumbstruck.
Let’s be honest, it has happened to us all (to me one too many times), so to remedy the problem I have found and created a list of what I believe is the 8 best international insults. The kind which will make the people around you marvel at your ingenuity and your skill in fashioning new insults.
So, without further ado, let’s saddle the chickens! (On with it)
8. The wind blew the trash together
So, whilst not technically an insult, it’s a great enough phrase that it deserves to be in this list. If you were hosting a Hungarian event, when greeting people, instead of saying “it’s good to see you all” you might say ‘öffzefujta a szemetet a szel’ instead. (Although I would argue that this counts as a great group insult in English, or perhaps you could use it as it was originally intended, as a greeting)
7. Gebrauchsanweisungsleser
If you haven’t guessed by the longer-than-it-should-be word, this one’s German. In direct translation it means something like ‘instructions for use reader’ and is slang for ‘wimp’. Bonus points if you use this one as you get to see everyone around you puzzling what it means, whilst you yourself appear above the non-German speaking rabble. That is, if you can pronounce it…
6. As stupid as soup
Another German one (as a language, they really have some great insults). The alliteration really makes this one snap. You might recognise this one from ‘The Big Bang Theory’ in which it features most beautifully.
5. Unlike your stomach, your brain does not alert you when empty
This Kenyan insult really burns. Best used against a friend (or foe) when in waiting for lunch in the eternally long queue.
4. You are a potato with the face of a guinea pig
The originality in this is superb, not only was it made by someone with a much better imagination than mine, it, combines two completely unrelated things with no context to make an insult. It sounds even better if you pronounce it with the French accent it deserves. Another French insult with the random joining of two completely unrelated things is ‘Spanish cow’.
3. May your wife give birth to a centipede, so you spend your life working for shoes
This is a particularly savage curse Serbian curse. Warning: Avoid using with a biologist or you may find yourself on the receiving end of a lecture on how “there’s no way on earth that this would ever be possible”, although maybe the biologists need to think about the bigger picture, after all there’s a whole universe out there, so maybe it is indeed possible.
2. May a goose kick you
The shortness of this Polish insult really makes it pop. Also, as anyone who’s ever been chased by an angry goose can testify, this is not an animal you want to mess with – especially when you have no bread on hand to distract the angry beast.
1. Mentally, you are a sock
As some of my friends can attest, this Hungarian insult about lack of intelligence is perhaps my favourite insult. The specification of ‘mentally’ adds a true sense of authenticity to the phrase, and added to the bluntness of the phrase? Perfection in just five words.
