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Mandarin slang

In some ways, Mandarin Chinese slang terms and insults resemble their English counterparts. For example, there are many slang words and insults involving sex. While many insults and expletives involve someone's mother, one may also insult someone by insulting their ancestors. Other Mandarin insults accuse people of not being human. Another difference is that Mandarin words for excrement or feces are much less commonly used in slang and insults, and there are few counterparts to Christian or Islamic blasphemy. Finally, some terms can be written in different ways, because the Chinese language has so many homonyms, and also because Internet users sometimes use alternate characters to avoid censorship. Sometimes this means naive speakers use expressions that are much coarser than they realize.

Like English slang, many Chinese slang terms involve the genitalia or other sexual terms. For penis:

There seem to be fewer words for vagina, which is more common as an insult than the ones for penis:

In addition to the above expressions used as insults directed against women, other insults involve intimating they are prostitutes:

Male masturbation, at least, has several vulgar expressions, in addition to two formal/scientific ones that refer to both male and female masturbation (shǒuyín 手淫 and zìwèi 自慰):

As in English, a vulgar word for the sexual act is used in insults and expletives:

Insulting someone's mother is also common:

Insults include implying that the interlocutor's mother or even grandmother was unfaithful. "Turtle" is commonly explained to be an insult because a turtle does not know its father.

While there are vulgar expressions in English referring to the buttocks or rectum, there are no real equivalents in Mandarin. Pìgu yǎn (屁股眼), the expression for rectum, is not vulgar, but it occurs in various curses involving an imperforate anus:

As in the West, highly sexual women have been feared:

Occasionally, slang words with a negative connotation are turned around and used positively:

Other insults include the word hùn (混), which means "mixed-up":

Perhaps due to the influence of wángbādàn (王八蛋), dàn (蛋; "egg") is used in a number of other insults in addition to hùndàn (混蛋):

For some reason, guā (瓜; melon or gourd) is also used in insults:

Fèi (S: 废, T: 廢; "useless") appears in a number of insults:

Because shame (or face) is important in Chinese culture, insulting someone as "shameless" is much stronger than in English:

Other insults accuse people of lacking qualities expected of a human being:

Sǐ (死; "dead") is used in a number of insults:

Whereas "shit" is a vulgar word in English, none of the various words for "excrement" in Chinese are in themselves vulgar, and are less commonly used as expletives. Perhaps because farting results in something that is useless even for fertilizer: "fàng pì" (放屁; lit. "to fart") is an expletive in Chinese:

The fact that many insults are prefaced with the Chinese word for dog attest to the animal's low status:

In at least one case, rabbit is part of an insult:

One of the few insults connected to the supernatural is not used to damn but to compare the insulted person to a disliked god:

Some expressions are harder to explain:

While there are various circumlocutions in Chinese for homosexual, like duǎnxiù (S: 断袖, T: 斷袖), yútáo (余桃), and bōli (玻璃), these are less common as insults. Tóngzhì (同志) (lit. "comrade") was recently adopted in Hong Kong and Taiwan to mean homosexual, and is frequently used on the mainland.

See also

TASHOJANG - Masturbation

References

Categories


Sexual slang | Sociolinguistics | Figures of speech | Chinese culture | National slang | Profanity

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