I still remember with a smile that time I left the car for a service in a garage in Birmingham. When I was leaving, a very embarrassed guy arrived who summed up the problem he was having with the car, "The fucking fucker has fucking fucked up", which was the angry version –and with an amazing economy of language– of " The bloody vehicle has broken down." We, who boast so much about the infinite polysemy of the very Spanish "cojones", as Pérez-Reverte explains in an article in El País, fall short if we compare it with the widespread fuck.

We already know the use of fuck as an interjection in all its variants to express surprise or anger Fuck, Fucking Hell, Fuck me! or even Fuck me sideways!, which we can replace with other Anglo-Saxon expressions just as expressive but much more ingenious: No way!, Are you serious?, Really? heavens above! Now I've seen it all! or the well-known Bloody Hell!

"Fuck" and Mass Media

Today Fuck is in all the media, but it wasn't always like that. In fact, until 1976 it had only been heard twice before in the history of British television, and both times it was a scandal that was discussed in Parliament. All of that changed instantly on December 1, 1976, when the Sex Pistols went on Bill Grundy's Today Show. It was the time when mature presenters could openly shuffle around teenagers and that's what Grundy did with the young Siouxie Sioux.

Steve Jones responded to Bill Grundy's challenge to say "something scandalous" what he did was not to cut himself and call him "You dirty fucker. What a fucking rotter", dirty pervert with the famous forbidden word (and repeated twice). In doing so, Jones introduced punk rock, until then a minuscule phenomenon that had barely made an impact, and fundamentally altered the way television was made in the UK.

Perhaps the appearance of Fuck is recent in the media, but not its use, which dates back to ancient times, as George Carlin explains in a text similar to Pérez-Reverte's on the word "cojones", although I would not follow his advice end of using the term as often as possible. But we are not here to compare and even less to talk about our Hispanic spark when it comes to choosing a good insult, but to know how to do it in English with style, grace and grace, since it is the lingua franca par excellence until Chinese remove the post.

https://t.co/5zZsLMmnUH Try to Retweet to reach more beginners🙏 https://t.co/0jX6w1Zdlt

— Day trader Sat May 22 05:36:31 +0000 2021

Four-letterwords

The four-letter words, which is the euphemistic name in English for the most profane swear words (and which are, in addition to fuck, cunt, piss, shit, cock, dick, knob, puss, shag, tits, twat, arse, dyke and many others that it is not difficult for me to write but it is difficult to pronounce) is now heard everywhere in series and movies. To show a button, the scene of The Wire of more than four minutes in which during an investigation only "fuck" is heard.

Before using a four-letter word, think twice. They are very offensive and a clever insult or an ironic retort is always much more effective. The British are the masters of acid humor and if you want to defeat them, use their weapons: wit and sense of humor. They make an art of insult.

An example of this is Shakespeare, whose work contains more than 500 insults, including the famous "You scullion! You rampallian! You fustilarian! I'll tickle your catastrophe!" (Back, stinking mop, back, viper or catastrophe caresses you!) that Falstaff releases in Henry IV or "Why no, you ruinous butt, you whoreson indistinguishable cur, no" (Not to me, moth-eaten barrel. Hi so , miserable gozquecillo; not me) of Troilus and Cressida. As always, the wittiest insults in the English language come from the Bard. And if not, from Monty Python.

Never ever drop a cue in a work meeting, it's much worse than the occasional "fuck!" to indicate surprise or even repressed "Fuck" with which some executives accompany the sales figure for the last quarter.

list of insults

Here is the list of insults that you expected so much. The translations are not literal, but rather the Spanish equivalent to use in a similar situation. The asterisk means that it is a very strong word, and, well, as always when it is insulted, half of it is very politically incorrect. Even so, remember if you are in a bar and the anger arises, be careful what you say, that the British go very quickly from the first insult to the punch.

To send someone to take wind, in addition to the famous "fuck off", there are other similar expressions, just as rude, such as "piss off", a little softer, but that you should not use in front of your grandmother (especially if it is English) or the super-British "bugger off". When a Briton blurts out a "bugger off" to an American he usually doesn't offend him, but rather makes him laugh.

Insult like a Sir

Since we are in the field of political incorrectness, an example of the audacious British way of insulting is the answer that Winston Churchill gave to the Labor MP Bessie Braddock:

Bessie Braddock:

"Winston, you are drunk, and what's more you are disgustingly drunk." (Winston, you're drunk, and what's more, you're filthy drunk.)

Winston Churchill:

"Bessie, my dear, you are ugly, and what's more, you are disgustingly ugly. But tomorrow I shall be sober and you will still be disgustingly ugly." (Bessie, darling, you're ugly, and what's more, you're filthy ugly. And tomorrow I'll be sober, but you'll still be filthy ugly.)

Although Churchill's bodyguard claimed that this linguistic exchange took place in 1946, the joke had been circulating since the 1880s. If Churchill answered Braddock in this way, it was probably not of his own making. Since historical anecdotes are almost always written by men, if that dialogue really took place, we also don't know what Braddock's response to such rudeness would have been. Being how she was an intelligent person, I am sure that she would not have resorted to easy humor and that she would have given the macho and sexist Churchill some jewelry that did not refer to his physical presence.

Use your ingenuity

My recommendation: if you want to insult like an Englishman, leave the four-letter words aside and look for more ingenious phrases, which do not refer to the physical, but to the intellect. These, unfortunately, are not mine, but Best-Insults. I hope they serve as inspiration.

Finally, a bit of humour. The scene in South Park in which the protagonists go to the cinema to see a Canadian art house movie and... a good one is put together. Nobody insults with as much rhythm as in that song, and its version in Spanish is not bad either.