Diana Page Jordan | Book Reviews and Inspiration

By Stephen Dodson and Dr Robert Vanderplank

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Published July 2009 (Paperback) by Penguin Group

Remember sticks and stones…from when you were a kid?  Well, words did hurt me.  But I loved Stephen Dodson and Robert Vanderplank’s book of international insults anyway.  Probably because — away from the mic — my sentences are laden with F-bombs and a few scatological references.  I’m sensitive, but not prissy. No name-calling, though.

And for some reason, I have a difficult time putting naughty words in print.  Which means writing this review might carry a few euphenisms. Notice how many syllables you have to use when you dance around these insults and curses?

The title of the book Uglier Than A Monkey’s Armpit comes from the Spanish.  Eres mas fea que los sobacos de un mono. The number one insult around the world is aimed at the cuckolded male.  And, the second most popular is for the dimwit among us.

Once, when I was a teenager in Spain, alone on the beach, these guys kept buzzing around, until Eduardo, just another Spanish guy, showed up, deliberately casting a shadow on my beach blanket.  He was maybe twenty, and I recall — don’t ask me why — that his birthday was November first.  Anyway, Eduardo called those men moscas — pests — and he told me I should say to them something that sounded like “vete hacer la ma” which is not a thing guys would do to their mothers. Eduardo won me over with his charms.

This funny, smart book is a great traveler’s guide — you don’t want to be holding up the wrong finger or saying certain words you later learn are a curse.

Western Europeans don’t take profanity very seriously — and they think it’s hilarious when, for example, Americans get their panties in a bind over things like when Michael Bloomberg — a decade ago — decided to ban “imappropriate” language from computers that used his Bloomberg Investment Services.  Turned out that a German company using the acronym FAG had a bit of trouble being listed on the NY exchanges.

When you’re stupid in Italy, it sounds like Gli manca una rotella, or He’s missing a wheel.

In English, you can sling insults like asshat and shitweasel, and the familiar a few bricks short of a full load.  When someone is clueless, he’s like a fart in a trance.  From the Celtic, may the cat eat you, and may the devil eat the cat. From the Yiddish, A crazy person should be discharged and you should be entered in the register of the madhouse.

And, from the Norwegian, a little story.  The word fitte, pronounced FIT-te, is the Norwegian word for our c-word, sorry I just can’t handle that word.  Anyway, Honda was releasing a car it was going to call Fitta.  Fortunately, someone caught the connotations in time, and the Honda Fitta is now the Honda Jazz.

I’ll close with an affectionate term Icelandic moms have for their children — rassgat (RAHS-gat) — litla rassgati mitt.  It means my little asshole.

Sticks and stones…