What I Learned in Granada by Adam Katz, age 11

Having completed my final exams (really! I'm awesome!) I feel I am somewhat an authority on enough things spanish, hispanic, latino, and, of course sephardic, not to mention mozarabic, mudéjar, moorish, morisco, and, fuck, why not, spick that I thought it time to do an educational piece.

These are the ways I have learned to tell someone off.

¡y una mierda! - yeah, bullshit

¡y un jamón! - same as above. The spanish use jamón for everything. It is simultaneously the diamond in the crown of their justifiably reputable cuisine (not that I fucking ate any of the smelly shite), the pejorative name given to Jews-in-hiding after the Expulsion ("marranos") the word for a badly dressed, unhygienic, or otherwise unpresentable person, and, as you can see here, a way to tell someone (politely) that he doesn't know his foot from a trotter. ¡viva cerdito!

que te dén - short for "que te dén por culo" i.e. "may they give it to you up the ass." I don't know who "they" are or if they're unionized, but Europe is pretty socialist, so I'll bet they get dental care, if you know what I mean.

véte a tomar por culo - literaly "go take it up the ass" but more appropriately translated (like the above) as "go fuck yourself."

chíngate = go fuck yourself, but more useful in Mexico than here.

fóllate, jódete = more appropriately peninsular-spanish versions of the above. Mind, in each of the three cases, the "go" is implied. It's not something one just does in the plaza (although they do everything SHORT of that in the plaza).

hijo de... - I've heard this is the best way to get your ass kicked: make a "your mother joke" in a place like andalucía where EVERY cathedral, and most large-enough-to-swing-a-cat-in churches are named after the virgen mary (madre del martirio, madre de las angustias, madre de dolores...she doesn't get a fucking break, unlike most spaniards with their 3 hour siestas).

still, popular variations include:

hijo de: puta, zorra, prostituta (she-dog, she-fox, prostitute; the first two are synonyms for the third).

¡coñazo! - pussy!
¡coño! - pussy!
¡maricon! - fairy
¡hada! - fairy

join us next time for the more literary side of the spanish middle-finger!