Thread by @vuorille

Ancient insults: Catullus

Latin is a sacred language, but make no mistake: It has profanity. Let's start with insults from just one author, in just one short book.

This thread is going to be
sesquipedalis - a foot and a half long.

#langtwt

Valerius Catullus wrote beautiful love poems to a woman he calls Lesbia. And some choice insults after she dumped him.

But Catullus doesn't discriminate. He also insults his rivals in love and poetry, the thief who stole his best handkerchief, and Iulius Caesar.

Let's start with objects: How do you call something "rubbish" in Latin?

Catullus loves to diss the works of certain rival poets. He calls their books

horribile - horrible
venena - poisons
and
cacata charta - beshitted paper.

How to insult a woman in Latin?

Catullus wasn't impressed with a friend's new girl. He calls her

insulsa - dull
molesta - a nuisance

And of course you can attack a woman's morals:

scelesta - criminal
puella defututa - fucked-out girl

The worst female insults in the book are reserved for Lesbia:

lutum - dirt
lupanar - brothel
moecha putida - you rotten whore

But I saved the best for last. Where Catullus really shines is when insulting other men.

perfidus - liar
ineptus - stupid
stultus - idiot
scelestus - criminal
infacetus - dull
struma - goiter
vorax - greedy
aleo - dice-player
hircus - billy goat (like the Spanish cabrón)

Catullus was a city man with a set opinion about those hillbillies from outside Rome:

fossor - ditch-digger
caprimulgus - goatmilker

And if someone had bad breath, he wondered whether the mouth or the ass smelled worse:

non referre putavi os an culum olfacerem

If you made bad financial decisions, Catullus would call you

decoctor - spendthrift
pater esuritionum - father of all hungry-goers

And you can always call a man a prick:

mentula - dick
or stronger:
diffututa mentula - fucked-out dick

In Rome, you could insult a man's morals just like a woman's:

moechus - fucker
cinaedus - shameless
pathicus - gay bottom

And the worst:

irrumator

That one is so bad, my trusty Latin-German dictionary doesn't translate it to German, just describes it in Latin.

Irrumator = man who puts his member in someone else's mouth

In ancient Rome, this word was as bad as "motherfucker".

If you don't give a damn, in Latin you don't give a hair:

non pili facio

Or a small copper coin:

non assis facio

You can simply wish evil on someone:

vobis male sit - may it go bad for y'all

or ask the gods to do the job for you:

isti di mala multa dent clienti - may the gods give many evils to that client

And let's wrap it up with a send-off: How to tell people to get lost in Latin.

abite illuc, unde malem pedem attulistis!
go back to the place from where you carried your bad feet here!
(It sounds better in Latin.)A

And that's it from Catullus. But wait, there is more: More ancient profanity in the books of different authors.

Make sure to follow me - there's more of these threads coming.