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Euroswearing QF3 France vs Spain
But first . . .
Yesterday’s result, a 4-2 victory for Germany over Greece, was another correct call by my completely scientific swearing algorithm. That makes it two out of two. Let’s see how today’s quarter final goes . . .
3. France vs Spain
Let’s start with the basic match-up: the archetypal, most popular word in the two adjacent countries. In French, it’s putain! In Spanish, it’s hijo de puta! So French whore! And Spanish: son of a whore!
Verdict one: Putain has a demonstrably better rhythm to it. Partly it’s a matter of the masculine ending — ie stressed phoneme. Try it at home. Hit your thumb with a hammer while shouting putain! Now try it again while shouting hijo de puta! It’s a clear French victory.
Now let’s move on to oral sex. A top French phrase is parler sur le micro — speaking into a microphone. The Spanish counter with a butifara — a reference to sausage-eating.
Verdict two: It’s an earthy act so, surely, an earthy metaphor is preferable to one which depends on having a recording studio on hand. Spanish quotidianism triumphs, as ever, over French abstraction.
That’s one each. And so to the tie-breaker. As it’s one-one between the countries themselves, I’ll give it to the English to decide, via their insult view of the two nations.
First Spain. Dagos. Page 235 of Filthy English:
From the Spanish Christian name, Diego. The word dates back to 1700.
Now France. Frogs Page 237 of Filthy English:
Why frogs? The usual explanation is that it derives from a francophone taste for eating reptilian limbs. However, before it referred to the French it was a seventeenth-century English slur at the Dutch - who were then the major enemies and whose low-slung wetland of a country would genuinely have been very froggy. So it's also possible that when the French took their place as Britain's favourite enemy, the racial slur moved over with them.
Verdict three: The result is obvious isn’t it. Not only is the Spanish slur older but it’s always been theirs. The French slur is just a Dutch slur that English, lazily, slapped over on to the French.
So it’s Spain to overcome their northern neighbours. Come on, los coños. (Yes, it does translate as ‘cunts’. More on this topic — whether it’s the spics or the frogs that get through.)
But first . . .
Yesterday’s result, a 4-2 victory for Germany over Greece, was another correct call by my completely scientific swearing algorithm. That makes it two out of two. Let’s see how today’s quarter final goes . . .
3. France vs Spain
Let’s start with the basic match-up: the archetypal, most popular word in the two adjacent countries. In French, it’s putain! In Spanish, it’s hijo de puta! So French whore! And Spanish: son of a whore!
Verdict one: Putain has a demonstrably better rhythm to it. Partly it’s a matter of the masculine ending — ie stressed phoneme. Try it at home. Hit your thumb with a hammer while shouting putain! Now try it again while shouting hijo de puta! It’s a clear French victory.
Now let’s move on to oral sex. A top French phrase is parler sur le micro — speaking into a microphone. The Spanish counter with a butifara — a reference to sausage-eating.
Verdict two: It’s an earthy act so, surely, an earthy metaphor is preferable to one which depends on having a recording studio on hand. Spanish quotidianism triumphs, as ever, over French abstraction.
That’s one each. And so to the tie-breaker. As it’s one-one between the countries themselves, I’ll give it to the English to decide, via their insult view of the two nations.
First Spain. Dagos. Page 235 of Filthy English:
From the Spanish Christian name, Diego. The word dates back to 1700.
Now France. Frogs Page 237 of Filthy English:
Why frogs? The usual explanation is that it derives from a francophone taste for eating reptilian limbs. However, before it referred to the French it was a seventeenth-century English slur at the Dutch - who were then the major enemies and whose low-slung wetland of a country would genuinely have been very froggy. So it's also possible that when the French took their place as Britain's favourite enemy, the racial slur moved over with them.
Verdict three: The result is obvious isn’t it. Not only is the Spanish slur older but it’s always been theirs. The French slur is just a Dutch slur that English, lazily, slapped over on to the French.
So it’s Spain to overcome their northern neighbours. Come on, los coños. (Yes, it does translate as ‘cunts’. More on this topic — whether it’s the spics or the frogs that get through.)
Next Italy vs England, of course
4 comments:
You are this tournament's Paul the octopus. I don't think your readers realise how hard it must be to call the result purely on each nation's pottymouthing, insulated from all TV coverage in a darkened cell, with just a copy of Filthy English as a guide. And a torch to read it by, of course.
If only I had eight arms, I could probably do an even better job. See next posting, though. As inhabitant of France — putain! (sorry touch of tourettes de france) — you might like to notice (or correct) my judgment of Nasri's post-match invective.
According to Figaro, the exchange went:
«Non, de toute façon, vous cherchez toujours la m..., vous écrivez de la m...». Selon plusieurs témoins de la scène, le journaliste s'est alors emporté à son tour et lui a répliqué «Alors casse-toi.» «Viens, on va régler ça là-bas», lui répond du tac au tac le joueur qui lâche ensuite une flopée d'insultes. «Va te faire enc..., va n... ta mère. Tu veux qu'on s'explique ? Fils de p... Comme ça tu pourras dire que je suis mal élevé !»
A couple of merdes, an up your arse, not sure what he was invited to do to his mother, and a son of a whore. That's what we want at the Euros, a bit of fluency and variety.
At lunch in the village today, the p-word was used, and a lot of 'je m'en fou du foot', and I don't think they'd even read todays blog.
i like the fact that after impugning the journalists' sibling relationship etc, he then takes umbrage at the journalists' casting doubts on his own familial history . . .
doesn't it make you just glow with wonder at footballers etc - no irony intended - well, only in the fact that i really do take enjoyment in this . . . quite unironically - though i suppose you could say that in itself is ironic . . .
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