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Sad news: the International Federation of Association Football (known as FIFA, because of some French thing), the governing body of international soccer (a game played with a ball and two nets in which the use of hands is restricted) has denied reports that it issued a list of 20 English profanities to World Cup referees in advance of the big tournament that is start sometime soon, apparently. I say the news is sad because I would love to see an official list of English profanities: "Motherfucker" and "cocksucker" now seem rather wan to me, due to overuse. I need a few good new curse words to really spice things up around here.
Owlfucker
Feathers and mouse skeletons everywhere.
I'm a big believer in the "Did it prompt a headbutt?" standard.
Yeah, except my daughter is in AYSO and gets called a cunt and a whore all the time. Trash talk is NOTHING anymore. Zidane was a pussy.
Also, she is 11.
"in which use of hands is restricted"
The violation of this rule is, I believe, called a "handjob," which is not on the list.
"Cunt" is actually rather low-octane profanity in the English sense. As opposed to America…
I picked my friend Eric up from the airport this week after his band had been on tour in Europe for a month. Not only had he spent the last two weeks of his time in Europe staying in Italy, the guys who booked his band's tour and drove them around Europe were both Italian, so he'd spent a lot of time listening to Italian being spoken. On the drive back to Richmond, he told me about Italian curse words.
"Italians curse by comparing god to dirty, disgusting animals," he said. "The worst curse word in Italian is ‘porco dio,'* which means ‘pig-god.' That word is the ‘motherfucker' of the Italian language. You can't say it on TV, and if a footballer says it during a game, they get suspended for two games. They also say ‘dio cani,' which is ‘dog-god,' and ‘Madonna rospa,' which is ‘bullfrog Virgin Mary.' The only thing they say that sounds like an English curse word is ‘Madonna inculata,' which means ‘Virgin Mary fucked in the ass.'"
I burst out laughing. "These are AMAZING."
"We heard so much of that stuff during the tour," he said. "Have you ever ridden with an Italian driver?"
"No, but I've taken a cab in Paris."
"That's a good comparison. All Italians drive like Parisian cabdrivers. They go as fast as possible at all times, they use the horn instead of the brakes, and they freak out if you cut them off. Anytime you cut off an Italian driver, they'll just launch into a stream of these curse words. ‘Porco dio, Madonna rospa, dio serpe'-that means ‘snake-god'-‘Madonna inculata,' etc."
"Do they say ‘octopus-god'?"
"Yes! They do, I just can't remember what it is in Italian."
"That's awesome. Every time they do that, they're inadvertently invoking Cthulhu." Every 15 minutes or so for the entire rest of the trip home, I kept thinking about Italian curse words again, and I'd crack up all over again.
So there you go, Balk, some new entertaining curse words for you. I've been walking around all week muttering "porco dio" under my breath and cracking up.
I LOVE Italian curses – they're fun to say and they sound delightful. Particularly "vaffanculo" (or just "vaff") which generally means go to hell, kiss my ass, etc, and "rompicoglioni" (pain in the ass).
I also had an uncle from Abruzzo who always used to say "faccia da cacarell." When I was little I asked him what it meant, and he told me it was "face of a cockroach," but I later learned in class that it's really "shitface." He also used to wish what sounded like "mortdellafam" on people, which I believe was dialect for "death by famine."
Bafana bafana you.
Whenever I hear "FIFA" I can't help but think of Fifi Towels.
If this list doesn't have "twatopolis", then it's blatantly inaccurate.
As an aficionado of cursing I have some hardcore heavy-metal curses that I rarely make use of. You have to keep that brand exclusivity for them to still work, you know?
But the refs have to pass a basic ESL test in order to work at World Cup, and I'm pretty sure it only evaluates their knowlege of profanities and ability to clearly say Offside, Red Card and Yellow Card.
Rooney will use at least 3 or 4 this Saturday, right? Keep a notepad handy.
Roooooney!
There is no better profanity than "cocksucker."
I agree with you in principle, but it does lose its luster through overuse. On the other hand, I'm watching the second season of "Deadwood" right now, and I'm kind of cocksuckered out.
The Church of Jesus Christ and Latter-Day Saints. For those long, drawn-out bouts of irritation.