Comment by ararar | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ararar | Hacker News Reader

Seems like someone may have the pleasure of becoming interested in the matter and going further. Perhaps they may resurrect Maledicta, the journal of verbal aggression. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maledicta. I remember going through the collection of issues of the journal at the Perry Castañeda library at the University of Texas-Austin many years ago. I highly recommend it. Read about things like Spanish potentiation of insults (like raising to a power), and other things I forget. The only reason I can recall Spanish potentiation is that I speak Spanish and I never realized such a thing existed.

There was, of course, an article (or issue?) dedicated to "your momma" jokes. The most memorable one was an Italian one that goes:

If the streets were paved with cocks, your momma would walk on her ass.

Ooh, good stuff!

Reminds me of the excellent, but unfortunately short-lived, "Better Off Ted".

The episode these bits (link below) are from was, (also) unfortunately, far less amusing / acerbic, as aired. But, while the "official episode" may have been rather weak for that show in general, these far higher-quality outtakes live on:

https://youtu.be/Bh7Nz4bIwss

i thought i was the only one who thoroughly enjoyed that show! nice to see someone else appreciated that short-lived show enough to mention it.

I remember my times at the Perry Castañeda Library. (ex UT) here. Insults in México are an art and science on itself. There are dozens and dozens of pendejos types and categories: Pendejo exclusivo: El tipo que viene y te dice: "Yo no soy tu pendejo" Pendejo esférico: No importa por donde lo veas, sigue siendo un pendejo. Pendejo referencial: Al dar direcciones dices: ¿Ves a ese pendejo? Allí dobla a la derecha. The list goes on. I don't have a fair english translation for the word pendejo.

That's interesting. I grew up in Utah and many students at public schools were the children of first-generation Mexican immigrants (or first-generation themselves) and often the answer to, "What does pendejo mean?" (because of course that question came up in Spanish class) would be something along the lines of, "I can't describe it". This helps to explain why if the question itself seems to have a parsing error. In this case, "What are this word's meanings?" might have been a more yielding question (not than an 8th grader is likely to think of that).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com