Thanks to our recent acquisition of cable TV, I've discovered a new word: Maldiccion! (Sorry, but I can't manage italics or the accent that should be
on the "o," much less the preliminary upside-down exclamation point. When I try fancy stuff like that, whatever I've typed tends to disappear.)
Maldiccion! is the translation used in subtitles of U.S. movies for s---, f---, p--- and all those other endearing old obscenities that Doug (prude
that he is) won't allow us to use.
I've been trying to fit Maldiccion! into the vocabulary one turns to in times of stress, but somehow don't find it very satisfying. It's got four
syllables, for one thing, so you can't just spew it out forcefully, as you can s---, f---, and p---. There's always , of course, but that's also too
long to have any snap to it.
Is there any one-syllable word in Mexican Spanish that can be applied in stressful situations?
bajalera
[Edited on 10-25-2004 by bajalera]BajaNomad - 10-25-2004 at 01:24 AM
Quote:
Originally posted by bajalera
... Doug (prude that he is) ...
Appearances can be deceiving...
How About??
Capt. George - 10-25-2004 at 05:08 AM
POLITICIANS!Braulio - 10-25-2004 at 09:18 AM
I'm sure Oso will want to get in on this important topic - but the only one that occurs to me offhand is "chin".
The problem is that so many spanish words end in vowells.
I've also heard "sal" - as in "qu? sal" - but that's kind off dated and fuddy duddy.
Problem for me is that when I get POed and start swearing in spanish the people around me usually get the giggles - and it's hard to maintain the PO.
Now why on earth
jrbaja - 10-25-2004 at 09:31 AM
would a sweet, innocent and lovely lady be interested in such things ?
Ay Cavron, what is this world coming to?
Mexican Cable Service
LOVE2GO2BAJA - 10-25-2004 at 10:41 AM
Mexican Cable Service
Bajalera
Trust me if your Mexican cable service is anything like the cable service (Cablem?s) here in Ensenada you?ll have plenty of reasons to practice every
cuss word you know in Spanish as well as English with regards to your reception and service.
LOVE2GO2BAJA
Lera.....
Debra - 10-25-2004 at 10:41 AM
When you find one please post it! I was also in need last night when I went to a birthday party for a gal-pal and witnessed her being ABUSED and
DEGRATED! by the stripper someone had hired, when he came at me I told him "Lay one hand on me and I'll call a COP!" It would have been much better
if I'd had "that word" to use that would have made me feel better and still not embarress myself.
Debra Debra Debra
jrbaja - 10-25-2004 at 10:44 AM
Tsk Tsk Tsk !!!
JR......
Debra - 10-25-2004 at 03:56 PM
How bout this one....
Smugla - 10-25-2004 at 04:06 PM
Como chinges....or carajo...or...chin-gay!..(phonetically )...or puta madre....or when faced with an incredible situation ..no mames wey...as in no
f***ng way!.....and for the phrase get the flock out...vete la verga.......hope that helpsBraulio - 10-25-2004 at 05:57 PM
Too many syllables smugla.
I used to have a friend who lived in Soler,TJ - he ran a llantera - seen a lot of beautiful sunsets accompanied by carne asada and caguamas from up
there.
Actually "chin" ain't a bad cuss word for a woman - I used to have a girlfriend that used it as about the only word in her cuss word arsenal - and she
was about as proper as they come - also used to say: chin-chin-ca-chin or something like that.Oso - 10-25-2004 at 06:11 PM
First, you have one too many "c"s. It's maldici?n, a noun meaning "curse". I guess it serves the purpose of letting the audience know that that is
what's just been said. But it's never used as an expletive. Maldito(a), meaning cursed or damned, can be noun or adjective (just like in English)
but is usually used as an adjective, as in "Tu maldito amor" or "Fuera, maldita mancha!" (Shakespeare)
As far as monosyllabic, forceful expletives go, I guess this is a cultural, idiomatic phenomenon. Our Anglo-Saxon linguistic roots seem to produce
the most "four letter- one syllable" cuss-words, at least compared to the Romance languages.
Braulio's "Chin!" is about the only one syllable expletive I can think of and this is half a word, used as a euphemism, when one hits one's thumb with
a hammer or in other circumstances where Homer Simpson would say "Doh!"
For two syllables, Smugla has some good suggestions. Everything depends on the situation and whether you want to insult a specific person or issue a
rhetorical comment to the world about the general f---dupedness of the moment's situation. Either way, it's going to take a bit longer to do it
properly in Spanish.Packoderm - 10-25-2004 at 10:18 PM
How about, "Percebes!"?bajalera - 10-28-2004 at 05:46 PM
Sorry I haven't been able to get back to this thread sooner--our dial tone went missing again.
Thanks, Oso, for the spelling correction. But when Maldicion appears in a subtitle with exclamation points on both ends--the first one upside
down--while an actor is saying "S---" in English, it's clearly being used as an expletive.
JR, ole dear, I got news for you: Polite and relatively respectable women who have traveled in Baja California as Debra and I have done--with children
and without a male care-giver--we soon learn to do our own gol-durn cussin' when things go kerflooey. Swearing is way more comforting to me (and I
suspect to Debra as well) than crying.
And thanks, y'all, for the "chin." With a little practice, I can probably learn to bark that out so it sounds pretty ugly.
LeraBruce R Leech - 10-28-2004 at 05:57 PM
daDavid K - 10-28-2004 at 06:04 PM
Quote:
Originally posted by Hose A
Percebes seems to translate into.. Barnacles.. is that a cuss word in Spanish?
Is that why she calls me a viejo percebes?
So, the camp south of San Felipe, 'Percebu', is a form of the word barnacle? Makes sense!Dave - 10-28-2004 at 09:11 PM
Quote:
Originally posted by Hose A
Percebes seems to translate into.. Barnacles.. is that a cuss word in Spanish?
Is that why she calls me a viejo percebes?
YesBraulio - 10-28-2004 at 09:39 PM
Quote:
Thanks, Oso, for the spelling correction. But when Maldicion appears in a subtitle with exclamation points on both ends--the first one upside
down--while an actor is saying "S---" in English, it's clearly being used as an expletive.
Which just goes to prove that Oso knows spelling better that any maldito cable company.
Actually "maldici?n" can also mean simply "expletive" - so if I saw it without the exclamation marks I'd figure that they want you to kind of fill in
your own.bajalera - 10-29-2004 at 12:40 AM
Braulio, how did you do that accent? When I use the Ctrl-plus-apostrophe system that works on Word, the text disappears.
Lera
[Edited on 10-29-2004 by bajalera]Braulio - 10-29-2004 at 07:04 AM
Bajalera-
I just set things up so that I can toggle between the english and spanish keyboards:
You can set up the spanish keyboard by going to:
Start/control panel/regional and language/languages/details..and then following instructions..
I select english (US) and spanish (Mexico)
Toggle between languages by: alt+shift.
An option would be to use the US international keyboard exclusively - but it's been a while since I used that one - set up would be the same - some of
the spanish characters can be a little more involved here as I recall - but you're all set because you know 50 ways to say your maldiciones.
[Edited on 10-29-2004 by Braulio]Oso - 10-29-2004 at 08:27 AM
I use more or less the same toggling technique, except that I don't use alt+shift. I have a little blue box with EN or ES in it that I click on down
in the corner of the screen. I also have a set of decals on my keyboard so I don't have to remember where everything is (I do a LOT of Spanish) The
system is different in Windows XP than it was on my old laptop with 98. It's more complicated now, but faster and has more options. Fr'instance, I
don't use the tilde to make ? out of n, the "enye" is on the colon/semi-colon key and the decal shows me where it is.
Bajalera, to get that monosyllabic emphasis you may want to try a very forceful accent on the first syllable followed by a softer trailing off of the
following ones:
?CHINgao! ?PUta madre!
Spaniards, particularly Galicians (Gallegos) use ?Co?o! for a great variety of situations, even casual conversation, but it's not as common in Mexico.
(It's a reference to female anatomy)Dave - 10-29-2004 at 01:44 PM
Quote:
Originally posted by Oso
Spaniards, particularly Galicians (Gallegos) use ?Co?o! for a great variety of situations, even casual conversation, but it's not as common in Mexico.
(It's a reference to female anatomy)
I hear Buena Concha a lot. Well, I don't, but I hear that you hear it a lot.Oso - 10-29-2004 at 05:46 PM
Actually, I don't. But a bunch of Guerrerense friends use "Cocho" quite a bit.bajalera - 10-30-2004 at 03:32 PM
Thanks for the info on diacritical markings, Braulio and Oso. They don't seem to work on my computer, so I'm just going to pretend I don't know where
they belong (which is true part of the time, anyway).
Lera
Huevon
Skipjack Joe - 5-3-2005 at 05:24 PM
Anybody know what huevon means? I've heard it used in Peru and wasn't sure just how bad it really was.
Somewhere around lazy
jrbaja - 5-3-2005 at 05:39 PM
but I have a feeling you are about to give Lera some practise with her "expletives" for not starting a new thread about this!
Huevone
Osprey - 5-3-2005 at 06:06 PM
Huevone is used to discribe a guy who is so lazy his testicles drag on the ground. My Mexican neighbors don't verbalize the expression -- it is
demonstrated by holding the right hand, palm up, in an exagerated cup, then raised and lowered as though weighing an object held in the hand.
Huevon
Skipjack Joe - 5-3-2005 at 11:08 PM
Quote:
Originally posted by Osprey
Huevone is used to discribe a guy who is so lazy his testicles drag on the ground.
That is absolutely hilarious, Osprey. How one can define laziness from one's testicles is beyond me. But that's what I like about their culture - the
earthiness. God bless their sense of humor. Half the time it's linked to sexuality, one way or another.
Actually, I find that the same obscenity in South America has a different meaning in Mexico. This is one of those cases. It's a swearword down there
but I don't know how it relates to the huevo part of the word.
Here is how I learned about this word. I was traveling through the Andes about 3 years ago by local bus. It had stopped next to a bar waiting for
passengers. The door to the pena was open and I could see one boracho through the window who was waving a half empty bottle at the bar tender.
Suddenly this guy notices us staring at him and starts to run for the door. By this time the bus driver starts to comprehend the situation, starts the
engine and begins to pull away from the crub. Meanwhile the boracho is out now and running alongside our bus trying to reach the open door. He
realizes he can't catch up in time and heaves his half empty bottle of liquor at us. There was a scream from inside (I don't know why for all the
windows were closed) and the busted glass flies in all directions. We pull away and the driver tries to calm the passengers and that's when I hear him
mutter the famous word to himself "Huevon".
I've been curious ever since. What a way to learn a language, eh? Much better than some textbook.rogerj1 - 5-4-2005 at 03:34 PM
Quote:
Originally posted by Packoderm
How about, "Percebes!"?
Been watching a little Spongebob? Me too.Osprey - 5-4-2005 at 04:07 PM
Bajalera
I just wrote the character map codes for the most common marks on a strip of paper, got it taped to the top of my monitor. Works pretty fast, just a
quick glance up. Just hit alt + map character #.
Skipjack
If you want to get along with the young guys on the beach drinking beer just use the term Pu?atero every time you get a chance. Pu?a means FIST and
you can figure the rest on your own.Oso - 5-4-2005 at 04:20 PM
"?No me llames frijolero,
P-nche gringo pu?atero!"
from "Frijolero" by Molotov
BTW, the female equivalent of huevon is huevona. I'm not too sure if it refers to ovaries or if it's just an adaptation. A friend of ours gave me a
recipe for "salsa huevona", a very quick easy salsa. I translated the name as "Lazy b-tch salsa".Packoderm - 5-4-2005 at 09:29 PM
How do you say "shucks" in spanish?Braulio - 5-5-2005 at 09:26 AM
Packoderm -
I'd probably go with some variant of "nada" - like "de nada" or "no fue nada" or "no fue nada de veras".
I've never understood the connection between being "big balled" and "lazy". When I was a kid I'd spend some summers up in Colusa - and what heady
days those were - we used to catch squirrels and castrate them. Occasionally one of our patients would return and they'd be big as an alley cat and
kind of sluggish/lazy looking. So at least in that case having no balls made them lazier. Kind of like eunics.
Likewise with just about any other animal that's been castrated.
An intersting topic.Packoderm - 5-5-2005 at 02:06 PM
Shucks:
1. A husk, pod, or shell, as of a pea, hickory nut, or ear of corn.
2. The shell of an oyster or clam.
2. Informal. Something worthless. Often used in the plural: an issue that didn't amount to shucks.
tr.v. shucked, shuck?ing, shucks
1. To remove the husk or shell from.
2. Informal. To cast off: shucked their coats and cooled off; a city trying to shuck a sooty image.
interj. shucks (shks)
Used to express mild disappointment, disgust, or annoyance.Braulio - 5-5-2005 at 05:11 PM
Sorry about that Packoderm - I guess I was thinking more of shucks in terms of a self deprecating "shucks tweren't nothing ma'am" type meaning.
For the formal meaning use "c?scara" - that should cover most spherical shell-type coverings for fruits, pods and nuts - it will even extend to
eggshells.
You'll also hear "vaina" for vegetables - but to me that's used more for softer coverings - like an avocado. We'd probably use skin here.
As kind of an aside - and I had never really thought about it before - but "vaina" is also used in spanish as "shucks" is in english to express
something that's worthless - a synonym to "vago" or "inepto" or "in?til".
For the shell of an oyster or clam just go with "concha" - if there's a more specific culinary meaning I'm not aware of it offhand.
For the informal meaning either go with what I wrote before - or if you're looking for a one syllable word - maybe "chin" - depending on context.
Hope that covers it.Oso - 5-5-2005 at 06:36 PM
It would help if we knew the context in which you wish to express a thought and roughly what it is you're trying to say in response to whatever.Packoderm - 5-5-2005 at 06:38 PM
I tried the online tranlator for "shucks," and it game me "vainas." I tried "husks" and it gave me "c?scaras."
speaking of huevos...
guerosurfero - 5-9-2005 at 11:23 AM
a good adverb to doing something lazily is "a huevo". Like if somebody were to ask you how some project was going, you could reply "a huevo" if you
were feeling like a huevon/a.Oso - 5-9-2005 at 06:29 PM
Quote:
Originally posted by guerosurfero
a good adverb to doing something lazily is "a huevo". Like if somebody were to ask you how some project was going, you could reply "a huevo" if you
were feeling like a huevon/a.
Sorry, but you're wrong. "A huevo" has no relation to "huevon" and does not mean doing anything lazily. Doing something "a huevo" means you have no
choice in the matter, you MUST do it at all costs.guerosurfero - 5-10-2005 at 09:19 AM
Really? I understand that doing something "a huevo" means you must do it, however it does have some reluctant/lazy connotations because one is not
enthusiastic about it. Usually somebody who approaches a task "a huevo" isn't exactly attacking it, will put it off as long as possible, and will try
to avoid doing it, even though it's hopeless.guerosurfero - 5-10-2005 at 05:14 PM
OK lencho - a huevo Oso - 5-10-2005 at 05:30 PM
mmmmmmmmm... nahhh. Depending on context and tone of voice, it CAN express a certain reluctance, but at the same time it's a fatalistic acceptance
of inevitability which carries a commitment. You may not want to do it, but you know you have to, so you're saying you will. Not maybe you will or
you will ma?ana, but you definitely will, "by the balls".
In another context, not necessarily involving work, the phrase "?a huevo!" by itself, can be a very enthusiastic and emphatic affirmative response to
a question, suggestion or statement-
More or less the equivalent of "Damn Straight!", "F***in' A!", "Word!" or "I heard that!"Braulio - 5-12-2005 at 08:45 AM
"A huevo" can mean about anything you want it to - from an emphatic "yeah - right on" to "L - no" - I usually use it to express a sarcastic "probably"
or "maybe" or "in your freaking dreams".
ex) So Braulio - are you going to pay me back that 20 bucks you owe me?
" A huevo man".
You can also make up your own form of "a huevo" to kind of sanitize it: Like "abuelito" or "a hueso" or abogado/avocado etc. etc.
"La hueva" can be used to express laziness or huevoness:
For example: "Oso tiene la hueva."
But I can't really think of a way to twist a form of huevo in to an adverb that means lazily - maybe something will occur to me later.guerosurfero - 5-12-2005 at 09:48 AM
Yeah, i guess i was wrong to say it had a "lazy" sentiment. I've just heard it used in situations where somebody wasn't too excited about doing
something tedious, putting it off until the last minute, but it would eventually be done.
ex:
me - "Oye, como te va el trabajo"
neighbor drinking a beer in the shade when they should probably be working - "a huevo"Oso - 5-13-2005 at 05:07 PM
Quote:
Originally posted by Braulio
"La hueva" can be used to express laziness or huevoness:
For example: "Oso tiene la hueva."
But I can't really think of a way to twist a form of huevo in to an adverb that means lazily - maybe something will occur to me later.
