The Art of Swearing
When it comes to creative insults no one can outdo Argentinians.
Insulting is an art not everyone can master.
Some try putting their foul mouth to good service, but if they’re not putting their heart in it as well, profanity and blasphemy will remain only that. Common imprecations capable of offending or creating outrage, but not magical sparks.
And then there’s the language which one picks for a good ol’ swearing spree, of course. Not all languages are created equal when it comes to what the Argentinians call la puteada, which the English translation I’ve looked up tells me is a shower of insults. Even here language makes all the difference.
That’s at least what became quite clear after watching Wicked Little Letters, a film based on the true story of the mysterious poison pen letters that started arriving to Edith Swan first and then to other neighbours of Littlehampton in the early 1920s.
The letters, plagued by foul language, became so numerous that what could have remained an anecdote in a small town became a case that captured the attention of the national newspapers.
The story could have been lost had it not been for Christopher Hilliard’s book The Littlehampton Libels: A Miscarriage of Justice and a Mystery about Words in 1920s England which has provided the basis for the film that sees Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley as victim and suspect respectively and Anjana Vasan as the police officer that suspected something was not as it seemed.
With that premise I was expecting the film to be something lighthearted and amusing for two reasons.
In first place because there are only so many indie movies I can handle and that ship sailed earlier in the week after watching Aftersun. And secondly, because a Sunday afternoon is not the time to wallow in the depth of human existence. Definetly not when I’m armed with a bag of fresh chouquettes that I intend to eat as if they were popcorn while I let myself be transported by a story set a century ago in a picturesque little town in the English seaside.
However, without giving anything away because I’d like you to enjoy this delightful movie spoiler-free, I’d only add that Wicked Little Letters ends up being slightly more complex than you would initially expect. It brought to mind the classic “Caesar’s wife must not only be honest but also look like it”1 as I walked out of the cinema.
How little we actually know about the inner lives of those around us when our interactions don’t expand beyond a specific context or situation that offers us a different perspective of who they are when no one is looking. Lacking the opportunity to see someone in a disturbing, extremely private or high voltage setting we are deprived of vital information about them.
Over the years I have developed my own theory about tried and tested ways to see through people and I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s impossible to know someone, no matter how many hours of the day you spend with them, until you’ve witnessed them:
Drunk, not slightly tipsy but totally wasted
Before, during, and after having sex
In a raptus of swearing
Either of the above is immensely revealing about a person’s true character. Not the least because any of the above situations could be conducive to the other two as well as be a result of them. Up to you to decide the order.
Although much could be said about the situations that would lead you to see someone getting wasted or having sex (and here you not being involved in either is actually more interesting than you being a part of it, which is more predictable), seeing someone lose their utmost shit and start a string of insults and profanities is perhaps the most fascinating of the three scenarios.
Excluding the influence of alcohol, pheromones and oxitocin, there are many situations in daily life that can easily lend themselves to people bursting out strong epitetes and colourful profanity. And their choice of words as well as the delivery matter. Are they playful? Aggressive? Enraged? Funny? Do they laugh it off straight afterwards? Or is it better to stay away for a bit until things cool off?
While the guardians of polite society will frown upon such behaviour, prevent the use of such terms and will reprimand you for speaking like a lorry driver or a sailor -poor lorry drivers and sailors, their only sin has been to expand our vocabulary - the XXI century is a much more welcoming place than past times for the lovers of foul language and swearing has become more acceptable over the past two decades, to the point that using words like “fuck” or “shit” is considered a form of social bonding.
Timothy Jay, professor emeritus of psychology at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, who has studied swearing for more than 40 years, has even more good things to say about swearing. According to his research swearing could have some advantages and be a sign of higher intelligence, as well as a marker for creativity, it is correlated with honesty and it could be a good way to helps us emotionally regulate, especially pain.
If you have ever knocked your little naked toe against anything you are most likely nodding in agreement right now.
Jay’s research highlights that swearing is a universal language and everyone does it in one way or another, including animals. He probably has forgotten to mention in his research another fact that supports the universality of swearing: the first thing you want to learn in a foreign language is what native speakers often get in trouble for saying out loud.
However, the thing about swearing and insulting in a foreign language is that the words, no matter how terrible, don’t hit the same way. Especially when you come from a culture where swearing is very creative and colourful and mild swearwords are part of everyday life, used almost by any age group in a wide range of contexts. What others may find shocking in the original language, it lays flat when translated and viceversa. The insults lose their purpose, the swearing becomes comic; or the reverse: the innocent expletive in one language can unchain a full-fledged confrontation in another.
My second year in Italy was an eye-opener in this regard. I started using the word stronzo, which the dictionary revealed was the translation of the Spanish gilipollas, a word that can be inserted in almost every sentence in my native tongue. It wouldn’t take long for me to discover that what I saw as a highly versatile filler - gilipollas can in fact mean anything from silly to asshole but also be a term of endearment in the right tone2- had a much narrower sense in Italian. Definitely not something to say out loud as liberally judging by the stares I was getting. It was a learning curve that forced me to expand my vocabulary with proper words and milder insults.
Let’s now consider the reverse: a strong swearwod or insult in one language that loses all its impact when translated.
One classic example of this is can be found in Pulp Fiction. The movie was dubbed in Spanish -as everything is- and as a result of its recurrent use of the word “fucking” it popularised “jodido/a” as a literal translation of the English original. However, this created quite an unexpected humorous effect and people to this day imitate the way characters not only in Pulp Fiction but in similar films speak by overusing “jodido” instead of the more appropriate and typical Spanish “puto/a”, our indigenous vernacular for fucking.
This is because English relies a lot on the use of fuck or fucking for emphasis but these words don’t quite translate as well in Spanish, where we have several words to express either based on the emotional range we want to cover, from excitement, surprise, disgust, frustration, or happiness.
Let’s put it into practice.
If you were to translate “the fucking car is not fucking working again” into Spanish you would say something along the lines of “el puto coche de mierda que no funciona otra vez, joder3”.
You don’t need a BA in Spanish to realise that there are far more swearing words in the Spanish translation but that’s just how we would convey the meaning realistically. If we were to say it à la Tarantino "the fucking car is not fucking working again” would be something like “el jodido coche no function otra jodida vez”, which to me sounds as if you’re taking the piss and your car works fucking fine.
It is not the same.
Over the years I’ve noticed that I only react violently to insults in Italian and Spanish, as these are the two languages closest to my heart. I haven’t found myself in situations where I’ve been insulted in French yet. In any case, I think I’d feel quite elated for understanding whatever verbal abuse was aimed at me and would probably ask for an encore to make sure I picked up everything correctly as if I were back at school doing a French listening where I had to fill out the blanks with incomprehensible words spoken in impossible accents.
In English, however, there’s something quite curious at play. Despite my fluency in the language is nearly that of Spanish, overpassing even Italian, there’s something that doesn’t connect with me emotionally in the same way as in the other languages I speak. Perhaps this stems from seeing English primarily as a language of work and therefore associating it with practicality.
It doesn’t escape me that from a linguistic point of view, while being very rich in other aspects, English lacks the nuance and vocabulary to allow me to express myself with the colourful expressions I use in Spanish, which are untranslatable in English as they’re linked to very local ways of speaking and seeing the world. Powerful expressions such as Me cago en to’ lo más barrió (I shit on everything that has been swept over) or the hyperbolic Me cago en to’ lo cagable (I shit on everything that is shitable) mean nothing in English, while if you hear someone utter them in Spanish you know they’re beyond pissed. And if they decide to excrete on a religious figure -and here there’s also several options on offer- then you should probably run.
I’ve often thought about how edulcorated I am in English as I can’t use blasphemy. I’m always surprised when people share their impressions of me, or when I learn how I come across in the language of Shakespeare: more polite, verbally polished and well-spoken than I am when speaking in other languages, where the wider variety of swearing words -my default vernacular- grant my true self a way to succinctly express my thoughts without so many circumlocutions. A simply “Cazzo” can convey practically every emotional state that a situation provokes in me. In English I have to be very careful with the words I pick and the people I say them to.
Besides, there’s the issue with English pronunciation.
English has such a richness of sounds that the tiniest change in a vowel (out of the 12 that exists) can transform the meaning of a sentence. Take for instance the harshest insult the English language has coined: cunt.
To a non-native English speaker of a language with a limited range of vowels like Spanish this sounds not too different from can’t so forgive me for not feeling offended when it’s said out loud, even at me, but It takes a while for my brain to figure out whether I should be shocked or retaliate with Why can’t I?
In fact, I may react quite impassibly to the biggest obscenities you can concoct in English because I’m probably mistaking half of them for other words with a similar pronunciation. It’s not a sturdy demeanour but rather the lack of a complex phonetic system what has honed my phlegmatic attitude when confronted with some unintelligible insulting situations.
I do not exclude that aware of this limitation, and not willing to pass for a pusillanimous halfwit, I may have overcompensated and reacted quite viciously to what were innocent phrases that I’ve however caught only in half. I can’t rule out total strangers may have received a cautionary “Shut the fuck up” in response to their polite “Miss.” In my defence, when you’re trying to avoid eye contact on public transport and listening to music with your headphones on, lip reading can be tricky. It’s easy to mistake a “Miss” from someone who wants to politely get your attention for a less lady-like noun.
I know you’re pronouncing both right now to check if I’m correct. You have to picture yourselves with no sound on and focus on how the mouth moves. And now you’re also looking for a mirror. I know.
So despite the universality of swearing, and after having establish Spanish is a better linguistic fit for all things profanity-related, when it comes to who does it better, for there are insults and insults, for me there is no competition. Argentinians are by far the best swearers -not only in the Spanish-speaking world, but in the world- as well as the most creative and imaginative when it comes to insulting people. It’s built in their DNA.
I am unmovable in my conviction for three reasons:
I lived with an Argentinian girl, Romy from Córdoba, for a year when I was a Spanish teaching assistant in a private liberal arts college in the USA
It was a crash course in Argentinian culture.
After a year playing TEG, preparing mate, watching Argentinian films, listening to Argentinian music and talking for hours on end, I left with my own TEG game, my own mate and bombilla and a newfound respect and admiration for how creative Argentinians are in general, but in particular when it comes to insults.
Their inventiveness, quick wit and delivery are unmatched by anyone else. It’s not just the language, which offers more options, it’s what they do with it. They’ve taken insults to new heights and elevated them to an art. And I swear there’s not a hint of irony in my words, only sheer admiration.
I’m truly sorry for everyone who doesn’t speak Spanish because you don’t know what you’re missing. Let’s be clear, I’m not referring to the possibility to communicate with 548 million people in the second most-spoken language by number of native speakers, with an embarrassment of riches for beautiful accents. All that is a byproduct. The main reason one should be sorry not to speak Spanish is because they can’t appreciate when an Argentinian is insulting them, and that breaks my heart.
Those in the know, when meeting an Argentinian or talking about them with other people equally admiring, would probably refer to their superior swearing and insulting skills within the first minutes of the conversation.
This is always meant as praise for you must know that in Spain we have a particular reverence, and find it almost an honour, to be insulted by an Argentinian. It’s something no one should die without having experienced at least once in their lifetime. But not half-heartedly, we don’t want a “pelotudo,” “desubicado” or “sos un tarado” out of courtesy. That won’t do and we may feel offended. It has to come from the heart as well as the mouth. They have to mean it for it to be memorable.
An Argentinian could say the worst things to me in my face and I’d probably walk away thanking them and humbled by having received such a gift. “She told me to go to the reputísima concha de la lora”, I’d say to friends years after the incident, tears rolling down my eyes, moved as if it were the first time I was hearing those words, cherishing a moment that I can’t believe I’ve been lucky to experience. You’ll find few people capable of making me have fond memories of the time they told me to go to hell, but there’s something in the way Argentinians deliver insults that make them sound almost as compliments. You just can’t get enough.
Maybe it’s the accent. Or the cadence of the delivery, with emphasis in key words for sentences and on syllables for words. When someone is annoyingly funny they won’t tell you to stop it or shut up. Instead they have the more poetic “Che, qué pasó? te entró un payaso por el orto?”, which roughly translates as “What happened? Did a clown got up your arse?”
Argentinians don’t tell you to fuck off. Anyone can do that. I can do that and I’m not even a native English speaker. No, that’s too common, too unimaginative, there’s no grace or effort in that. Instead, Argentinians would say “Andate a la reputa concha de la lora que te remil parió, forro del orto.”
And when they don’t care about something they use “me chupa un huevo,” a deceivingly simple expression whose meaning is very naively explained here where huevo has been literally translated for egg. A common mistake in English when egg has no dirty connotations, unlike in Spanish. Let’s just say that the action is reversed. That is, you are not licked by an egg; instead that thing you don’t care about is licking one of your eggs. That’ll be balls for you.
Isn’t that a lot more playful?
Maybe it’s the dramatic pause preceding the insult. Or the musical intonation. Or simply that you’ve imagined this moment so many times that the anticipation makes it all the more exciting and worthy when it finally happens.
In any case, hearing an Argentinian start a good puteada is music to my ears.
I wonder how Wicked Little Letters would have played out if it had been set in Argentina.
As the idea occurrs to me, I start imagining the letters that could have been written and how the characters, unlike in the movie, may get sidetracked and end up setting up a competition to determine who insults better instead of trying to find out who is behind sending them. I can almost see them organise an open night to read the best letters out loud, for the delight of everyone.
And then, as I am fantasasing about these hypothetical foul letters in a more familiar vernacular, a flash of the memory brings me back to a scene from El Secreto de su Ojos (The Secret in Their Eyes) a fantastic movie by José Antonio Campanella. A film that won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 2010 with an excellent cast with impressive acting credentials led by the superb Ricardo Darín and Soledad Villamil with the support of the great Guillermo Francella.
A film that has already become a modern classic, that set up a new way of making cinema in Argentina and established Campanella as the director many looked up to. A film that also has a memorable scene where the character played by Darín goes on to explain the different types of “pelotudos” on his way to examine a corpse, which is his response to deal with the annoyance of being woken up so early in the morning for such a task and at having to guess which precise category of pelotudo the judge who has instructed him to do so falls into.
Now I have an urge to watch this film again. Of course.
The problem is that I don’t know where I can see it. Netflix shows it in his catalog but it’s not available in the UK. I have the suspicion it may be available in Spain as it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been able to see excellent Spanish-speaking films back home that were not available in the UK version of the platform.
I guess it’s just a matter of waiting until the next trip back home, probably in May, when I’d be taking my laptop with me and praying that the gods of geolocalisation are in my favour. Hearing Darín et altri imprecate with their impeccable nonchalance in what to me is the most beautiful accent in the Spanish-speaking world will have to wait a few more months.
Quite ironic as the reason I subscribe to Netflix is to have access to original content in other languages, including Spanish. If it takes me to travel to the countries where these languages are spoken to be able to watch these films, the subscription comes at slightly more than what they take each month from my account.
What was that thing Romy said when things didn’t turn out quite as expected?
Ah sí: Nos fuimos a la reputísima mierda, boluda.
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Which I’ve learned is translated into English as “Caesar's wife must be above suspicion” but I don’t feel it captures the full essence of the expression.
To give you more context on the versatility of the word gilipollas, my mum uses it with my sister and I when joking, to mean “don’t be silly” so that goes to show in how many situations you can use th most Spanish of insults.
This is a) in Spanish from Spain and b) the PG rated version. Depending on how annoyed you are at your car not working there’s a full range of swearing options available to you to express your specific level of exasperation. I take great pride in speaking an inclusive and diverse language.